





LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.* 

# 

I JP/te//\ 3L$ 

UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. ! 



the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 



AS EVOLVED BY 



MODERN SCIENCE: 

LECTURE 

DELIVERED IN TEXAS, IN 1860, 

BY 

S. S. EEMBERT. 



This earth of ours is a mighty organ, 
Of strings without end, keys numberless, 
And notes innumerable : some resound' 
Deep-toned and grand, like ocean in the storm, 
And thunder on its chariot of cloud ; 
Others sing silence as their sweetest strain 
To melodice the ear of intellect ; 
But all the million tongues of this organ 
Grand, peal out the mind of God omnific ; 
And nature's vast omniferous design, 
To people the spheres with immortal man. 
The typic cross, the crescent and the scroll, 
Symbols of faith, of passion and of soul ; 
Unfurl the lettered scroll ! Angel emblem 
Of the grand spiritual philosophy ; 
Unrolling life around the starry spheres, 
Unfolding angels of immortal love, 
And op'nmg the destinies of heaven. 



MEMPHIS: 

PRINTED BY BLELOCK & CO., 315 MAIN STREET. 

iRr,r>. 



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ERRORS AND CORRECTIONS. 

Without attempting to rectify all the promiscuous jumbling, 
of paragraphs and sections, on 
i (title) page, for "melodice, 11 read melodize 
i " page, after "omnific 11 omit the semicolon 
i " page, after "man 11 and before "The 1 ' should be 

hyphen or dash 
vi page, for " mayhaps " read mayhap 
vi page, for "portals 11 read portal 
vii page, for " rapsody " read rhapsody 
vii page, the words " Le Lieu near " should be enclosed in 
parenthesis 
x page, after " confidently " read have 
17 page, after " topic " omit the comma 

17 page, after " theme " should be colon instead of period 

18 page, for " beings " read being 

19 page, for " Yudisathira " read Yudisthira 

20 page, for "inwith 11 read within 

24 page, between the words "may 11 and "not 11 insert comma 

32 page, for " principal " read principle 

35 page, for " requires " read require 

35 page, for " its " read it is 

47 page, for " lies " read lives 

68 page, for " assimulated " read assimilated 

77 page, for " remain " read remains 

87 page, after the word " pant " omit semicolon 

91 page, for " consist " read consists 

103 page, for " appetite " read appetites 

103 page, for " in " read into 

104 page, for " Zephirs " read zephirs 

105 page, for " a , " read the 

105 page, between the words "forever " and " Thus " should 

be space for distinct paragraph 

112 page, after word "later 11 substitute comma for period 

118 page, for " larger, stouter, 11 read coarser, grosser 

122 page, after " current " substitute comma for semicolon 

122 page, after " charcoal " insert semicolon 

132 page, after " antidote " insert colon 
128 page, for " atmosphere " read atoms 

128 page, for " irons " read iron 

129 page, after " accuracy " substitute comma instead of 

semicolon 
129 page, for " suspiscious " read suspicious 

133 page, after " sea ' 3 omit the dash 

137 page, between the words " latter " and " in " should be 

space for distinct paragraph or section 
139 page, for " denizen " read denizens 

145 page, between "answer " and " These " should be space 

for separate paragraph 

146 page, after " he will " insert be 

162 page, for " acatalapsie " read acatalepsy 

181 page, for " Geheuna 11 read Gehenna 

187 page, between the words " philosophy " and " I " should 

be blank line for separate section 

198 page, after " man 11 substitute comma for semicolon 

215 page, for " verticle " read vertical 

216 page, for " emenations " read emanations 
232 page, for " mark " read mask 

236 page, for "eclipse " read ellipse 

244 page, for " assay " read essay 

245 page, for " incondensed 11 read incandescence 
251 page, for " 58 degrees F, 11 read —58 degrees F 
260 page, for " analyze the deep " read annalize &c 
270 page, after " in any " insert manner 

279 page, for "beautified 11 read beatified 

286 page, between the words "softly 11 and "Now 11 should 

be blank for distinct paragraph 
286 page, for " bitterly " read literally 
302 page, for " potent " read patent 



NOTE, 

EXPLANATORY AND MEMORIAL, 
BY THE AUTHOE. 



Since the following lecture was written out from my 
scattered notes and prepared for the press — considerably 
extended with more copious quotations and free digres- 
sions — the wild wave of internecine war hath rolled 
over our land and whelmed beneath its bloody surges 
many a thousand of our truest men and most promising 
youth — innocent victims to popular ignorance and 
public demagogueism. 

Before this dire calamity, I had concluded, against 
the importunity of friends, to let my lecture rest in 
silence as not perhaps specially demanded by the 
times. But since my country has become one wide 
waste of woe and of weeping — every household draped 
in the habiliments of mourning, every hearthstone 
crimsoned with the best blood of the family, and all 
my countrymen and countrywomen gloomed in the 
grief of bitter memories of sons slain and loved ones 
lost — amid all this sad scene of sorrow, I can but feel 
it a sacred duty and specially called for, to publish this 
glorious philosophy of our life as the best panacea in 
my power, the only healing balm for the bleeding 
hearts around me that I can offer. And it is enough, 



IV XOTE. 

if proved and applied, believed and embraced, in the 
plenitude of heaven's name it as enough, to ease the 
aching heart, to turn the streaming tears of sorrow into 
gushing fountains of delight, and gild in golden sheen 
the darkest clouds that ever lowered around the human 
soul. I can truly condole and sympathize, for I, too, 
have lost the right arm of my life, and would bleed my 
heart away, but for this lieavenly healing balm ; it is 
my comfort, my succor, my very palladium of life. 
Should I withhold it from others bleeding like myself? 
When Marshal Lannes fell, Napoleon exclaimed " I 
have lost the right arm of my empire." So when my 
eldest son, Andrew, fell, scarcely yet eighteen, I lost the 
right arm of my little empire on earth. Kind, gentle, 
generous, chivalric and true — truth his preeminent 
characteristic — with the highest order of intellect, an 
innate nobleness of soul, a manly mien, faultless physi- 
cal frame, and spirit and patience, impetuosity and 
prudence, passion and self-control, ambition and self- 
abnegation so beautifully blended. O, he had few 
equals and no superiors this side of heaven ! Certainly 
in everything, young as he was, he was a head and 
shoulders above his sorrowing sire. He fell where fall 
the obedient and brave, the good and the true, in the 
front of his friends, battling for liberty, contending for 
the great principle of self government, and vindicating 
with his blood, and hallowing with his life the great 
political evangel of government founded on the consent 
of the governed and love of the people ; though he 
was, like many, if not most of those who breasted the 
deadly bullet, free from the guilt of precipitating the 
bloody tragedy ; nor was his father an early advocate 



NOTE. V 

of the sanguinary conflict. He was among the first to 
fall in his first and last battle. But fate favored him, 
for it was his kind destiny to sever the mystic chord of 
immortal birth without a pang, so quick and kind was 
the fatal bullet ; a perfect euthanasia, he felt not the 
throes of death, nor knew it, until he awoke on those 
bright shores of his new and more congenial home. 
Already ripe, he was plucked like many others, to fruit 
the spheres of splendid spirits. His friends found him 
where he fell — 

" With his back to the field and his feet to the foe, 
An$ leaving in battle no blot on his name, 
Looking proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame !"' 

The reader will pardon this true tribute to his mem- 
ory, for he was the pride of my manhood to whom I 
looked, and the staff of my life on whom I leaned. 
His memory is now my shrine, and I would embalm it. 
forever in this grand destiny of the highest types of 
man, and record it in the archives of the angel world. 

And many another youth as promising, perhaps, as 
he, and many a thousand as dear to others as he to me,, 
have offered up themselves as a holy holocost in this 
mighty human hetacomb to the modern moloch of blood 
and fanaticism. 

My main stay now, my only hope that lends to life 
a gleam of light, is the glorious philosophy which I've 
tried to unfold in the following pages. It is the sun 
of my soul that keeps flowing its fast freezing fountains. 
— Stricken sires ! Mourning mothers of my country ! 
yet bleeding from an ordeal of blood unparalleled in 
human annals for its causeless cruelty and wicked 
wantonness : shall I longer withhold from you this 
sweet solace of again meeting your loved and lost 



VT KOTE. 

beyond the reach of bloody despots, where the glare and 
gloom of battles are no more and where the disgusting 
pseans of prurient praise by the obsequious parasites of 
power and truculent fools of fanaticism shall no longer 
echo to the moloch of a million murders nor swell con- 
gratulations to the diabolic and gigantic Armageddon ! 

Should I not contribute to spread the sunshine of 
this sublime philosophy that opens the portals of those 
splendid spheres of pure and spotless spirituality, and 
shows us our noble sons and brothers clothed in the 
angel uniforms of immortality ? In imagination I see 
them a band of brothers baptized with the best blood 
of the world, in solid phalanx unbroken marching to 
the music of celestial symphonies not understood by 
craven hearts or carnal ears ! Not dead but risen to the 
sublime altitudes of their grand destiny and true glory ! 

With all its imperfections — for my facilities at com- 
mand were few and small, and the incorporation of the 
addenda already alluded to, have rendered it somewhat 
fragmentary if not desultory — *with many seientifiic 
facts adduced and the philosophy educed as new, now 
become old to the posted and progressive student, with, 
mayhaps, the cynic's sneer and the critic's satire, the 
malediction of bigots and anathemas of priests, I publish 
it in my country, and for my countrymen, and leave it 
as a happy heritage for my remaining children long 
after I shall have passed the mystic portals-. My 
business agents shall be directed to let those who are 
not able to pay its cost, and whose inability is not the 
result of indolence, have it gratis ; others who are able 
will pay enough to reimburse me irk all but the labor, 
which is one of love, not pelf, an*i will not be lost. 



NOTE, VII 

Also as appropriate and possessing merit, in the 
estimation of my friends, I republish a couple of little 
poems. Others I also publish because it is my desire 
thus to preserve them, for which I alone ana responsible 
and indifferent to public condemnation or commenda- 
tion. The natural intensity of my hopes and feelings, 
si ill more intensified by scenes of sorrow witnessed and 
experienced, may invest my work with the semblance 
of transcendentalism and extravagance and rapsody ; be 
it even so, without hoping or caring to please a stolidified 
chastity, the creed-cursed bigot, or the snarling cynic, I 
publish it nevertheless. Defiant and free like the moun- 
tain eagle soaring in his native empyrean and bathing 
in God's free sunshine, unmindful of the sluggish birds 
below him, I, breaking the cage of despotism woven 
around the human heart for sixty centuries, soar in the 
empyrean of mind and bask in the blaze of God's free 
truth regardless of the antiquated sluggards who plod 
their old path of prejudice, ignorance and superstition 
on the primitive plains of earth. 

S. S, R, 

LeLieu, near Memphis, Tenn, 1865. 



INTRODUCTION. 

BY A FRIEND. 



Not long ago it was remarked by a shrewd observer 
of human nature, and one, too, who himself makes some 
pretentions to the character of a philosopher, that there 
was a vast wealth of undeveloped Ppilosophy in the 
Southern mind, which would yet make the literature 
and the genius of the South famous through the world. 
This mine of Philosophic wealth, owing to peculiar 
•circumstances, but mostly to the hitherto easy, and even 
wealthy, condition of our most cultivated people, has 
been but little worked. Had the "conditions" sur- 
rounding them been the same as in Germany or New 
England, the rich ore and the rare ' gems of purest ray 
serene' from the diamond minds of Southern Phi- 
losophy wold long ago have been, seen in the book- 
marts of every civilized capital, and would by this time 
have been translated and " set " in every polite language 
of Europe, and worn upon the brows of all the princes 
and leaders of Thought. 

Hereafter, the "conditions'" referred to, will be 
altered. The war has swept away most of the heredi- 
tary fortunes of the South ; and Southern thinkers 
must now come forth from their chl&e far Ante, and 
make literary labor and Philosophical research some- 
thing more than a mere pastime. They must learn to 
extract money as well as pleasure and " glory " from 
.their thoughts. Being thus compelled., in a measure, 



X INTRODUCTION. 

to apply themselves assiduously and continuously to 
scholastic pursuits and Philosophical exercises in the 
grand gymnasium of intellect, we may well believe that 
our literary leaders will speedily strike out something 
" the world shall not willingly let die" — something 
that shall parallel, if not transcend, the miracles of 
Bacon, Shakspeare, Milton. Before the Century 
has grown to be an Octogenarian, let us hope that we 
or our children shall see this glory come to pass ! 

The work before us, may be regarded as a pioneer in 
the great, the boundless field of Southern Philoso- 
phy. The writer is a gentleman of fortune, a native of 
Georgia, reared in the lap of affluence though a work- 
ing man, a hard student, and has never been dependent 
upon his pen or his brains for a support, although, as 
will be seen from the style of his Philosophic 
lucubrations, and his fugitive poetical pieces, some of 
w T hich are appended to this volume, he might very 
confidently relied upon them had there been any need. 
In the State of Texas, where he resided for some years, 
and where he is better known for his intellectual efforts, 
he enjoys a reputation of which he may justly be proud, 
both as a writer, and orator, and as a gentlemen of high 
social distinction. But as this reputation is mostly 
confined to Texas, and as this volume is intended for 
'Circulation in other States — of the South especially — 
as well as in Texas, it may not be improper to repro- 
duce m this place, some of the public testimonials in 
his behalf which have appeared in the Press of Texas, 
as a .fitting Introduction to the work before us ; for, 
most readers desire, at least, a partial acquaintance 
withiheu- author, his character, standing and antecedents. 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

The Texas "State Gazette," published at Austin, 
the State capital, a leading journal of an opposite politi- 
cal party to that of which Mr. Rembert has ever been 
a member, speaks of him as " a talented and high-toned 
gentleman, and leading orator of the party" 

The Victoria " Advocate," an equally able paper 
of the same State, not of his party in politics, speaks 
of his removal from that section to another, " where he 
will probably pursue the profession of law, for which 
he is well qualified, or cultivate the soil, for which he 
is equally well prepared." " Mr, Rembert," continues 
the Advocate, "is a beautiful speaker., and would be- 
come eminent by practice. Although courteous and gen- 
tlemanly in his manner, he is frank and fearless in the 
expression of his opinions. He became very popular 
during his residence here, and we, together with his 
numerous friends, regret that he thought it expedient 
to leave." 

After a short residence at his new location, Mr. Rem- 
bert was urged for the State Senate, but declined, 
not having that penchant for office so characteristic of 
modern "patriots." Referring to a series of articles, 
then appearing in the columns of The Galveston 
"News," from his pen, and entitled, " The Delta of the 
Trinity as paralleled with the Delta of the Mississippi," 
that journal said — "They are well written, as indeed 
everything is that comes from the pen of that accomplished 
writer" 

A popular jurist and elegant writer ol the South- 
West, Judge Palmer, spoke of one of his efforts as 
"full of poetry and of genius, couched .in glowing lan- 
guage, and replete with argument and philosophy." 



XII INTRODUCTION. 

Gov. Lubbock, of Texas, in a warm political discus- 
sion with him, during a time of great excitement, said 
that he " knew the gentleman (Mr. S. S. Rembert) as a 
finished speaker, and would caution his auditors not to be 
carried away by his eloquence" &c. 

The Goliad " Express/' speaking of Mr. Rem- 
bert's participation in one of these political discus- 
sions, pronounced him " an able orator and. champion of 
the parity." 

A well known writer in a Southern periodical, calls 
him "a great thinker;" and says, "his soul is in 
sympathy with a large class of intelligent men," and "may 
his soul expand and his intellect brighten, until he readies 
that haven OF light whose splendor is reflected from 
the wings of his imagination, as he soars in the regions 
of Poesy." 

These extracts are sufficient, without quoting from 
the organs of his own party, whose praises might now 
sound like fulsome adulation. But whether any of his 
productions are superior or even equal to this; or, 
whether he has now reached that "haven of light" 
referred to by one of his Southern admirers, is not per- 
haps proper for us to pronounce. We may safely say, 
however, and without committing ourselves to his Phi- 
losophy, or to his peculiar religious belief — which ; 
indeed, we must here expressly disclaim — that thous- 
ands of liberal minded readers will doubtless thank 
Mm for this honest, able and well-timed effort to vindi- 
cate our Father's love for His children, and the im- 
mortality of His children's love toward Him and one 
•another in an inseperable re-union hereafter. Such 
vindication is certainly not uncalled for, at this tim«e 



INTRODUCTION. XIII 

when so many of our brothers and sons have so lately 
been suddenly called away from the scenes of earth 
— perishing far away upon hundreds of battlefields — 
and is, indeed, greatly needed to relume the flickering 
hopes of many fast dying out under the baneful, blight- 
ing influence of so-called, but misnamed, " Christian " 
Churches on one hand, and the ponderous blows of a 
dreary, hopeless "materialism" on the other. 

Let not the reverent reader be startled by the bold 
freedom with which our author expresses his thought, 
almost at the outset of the discussion. His pen, it is 
true, is free — far more so, indeed, than we could have 
wished, for his own fame and usefulness — but his reli- 
gion is Love, and his heart is in the right place. The 
fatalist has concluded that we are but the playthings of 
Destiny. The Christian, with a soul and a mind full 
of the innate and revealed evidences of the truth of his 
Religion, believes in an all- wise, all-merciful, loving 
Providence, who controls alike the destinies of men 
and of empires. To this grand central Agency — the 
God of the Christian — our author, who is neither 
fatalist nor infidel, attributes the whole course and 
direction of human events. But he does not — will not 
— cannot believe in a cruel God. His religion is a 
compound of charity toward man, and love toward the 
Father of all! 

Without doing more than merely to allude to our 
author's apparent skepticism or "free thinking" here, 
we would remind him and all who read his book, that 
many things in the Great Creator's plan, and in His 
Revelation, must of necessity, appear inscrutable to us 
now ; we cannot judge with certainty of the whole by 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

a part ; and not until the last trump has sounded, shall 
we, poor mortals, be able fully to vindicate the ways of 
God to man.' 

To the Stoic, Mr. Rembert may appear extravagant ; 
to many of the clergy heretical ; and to the critic, des- 
ultory ; — but ardent minds are never to the stoic's taste, 
original thinkers seldom please a dogmatical clergy, 
and it is the critic's vocation to find fault. The "Lec- 
ture," of which the work under notice is but an elab- 
oration, may be charged with egotism; but it should 
be remembered that it was a Farewell Address to cher- 
ished friends, with many of whom the author was inti- 
mate, and with all popular in both his public reputation 
and private character. It is also more or less desultory; 
but how could this well be avoided in a Lecture cover- 
ing so wide a field ? Its variety, too, both in style and 
sentiment, the pervading vein of quiet, subdued humor 
that occasionally crops out; the combination of the 
argumentative and ornamental, and the historic allu- 
sions and scientific illustrations; should amply atone 
for all desultoriness. 

At all events, and in spite of every criticism, it is a 
bold and well sustained advance, in one respect at least, 
in the right direction; for, it strikes the first blow — - 
breaks ground — in the grand enterprize of developing 
the wealth, uncovering the minds, of Southern Phi- 
losophy. In this direction, lies a California little 
dreamed of by those unfamiliar with the true character 
and potentialities of the Southern mind. But, in no 
great while, we may now confidently expect to see this 
new gold region in process of successful development 
by a little army of del vers and workers, the result of 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

whose labors shall greatly redound to the increase of 
the treasured stores and immortal honors* of our be- 
loved, native Southern land ! To have been the pio- 
neer in the conquest of such an El Dorado — an El 
Dorado surpassing all those of mere material gold and 
gems — will be "honor 'immortal," enough for one man. 
That honor will be Mr. S. S. Rembert's— the author 
of the unique and interesting and eloquent work, for 
which we bespeak a thorough and not partial perusal, 
and to which we here introduce the reader, and respect- 
fully take our leave. J. P, 
Memphis, Oct. 1st, 1865. 



PRELECTION 

ON THE 

PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 



It is owing alone to the voice of friendship and love 
that I address you to-day. Not a political harrangue, 
sparkling with sprightly anecdote and rich in popular 
eloquence, or exciting gladiatorial contest of keen wit 
and cutting repartee imbued with bitterness of party 
spirit determined only to triumph, to rule or ruin, to 
be Caesar or nothing; nor yet a jejune disquisition or 
vapid homily on regeneration, transubstantiation, mode 
of baptism, final perseverance of the saints, and other 
ductile dogmatics of clerical scholasticism ; but a higher 
and holier and happier theme, a sublimer subject, en- 
gages us now. The philosophy of human life, of our 
lives, so long the sealed book of human history and 
human hope, just being unfolded to our view and 
understanding by modern science, is our topic, aspira- 
tion and inspiration at this time, and all the time; and 
it is more glorious than our imaginations can possibly 
conceive. 

You ask it, and I give it — not, however, without 
feeling conscious of my utter inability to do justice to 
the sublime theme.. 



18 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

That man is the? ultimate of the material creation 
below him, a microcosm of the universe ; that his body, 
a mere outside shell, or carnal caseing, adapted to this, 
his infantile condition of life, is elaborated from the 
rocks, and will decompose into its original elements; 
that his spirit or soul, in actuality the man, the divine 
principle which makes the conscious man of thought, 
feeling, intellect, affection, and angel aspirations, will 
live on immortal in endless progression of wisdom, and 
boundless succession of altitudes in love and glory, 
maintaining intact and unchanged his distinct identity 
and conscious individuality and personality, throughout 
the vast multitude of angelic beings, and infinite cycles 
of eternity : and that these excarnated spirits eliminated 
from perishable mundane matter, but retaining their 
hsecceity, can and do, under certain conditions, commu- 
nicate with us, and hover around and uphold us, and 
will recognize and greet us at our coming on the very 
threshold of their pure pavilions. 

This ki few words is the new philosophy as devel- 
oped and established by modern science, whose investi- 
gations have penetrated as well the internal structure 
of the earth and traced its hoary age, as the spiritual 
spheres that engirdle the globe with ethereal realms of 
peopled intelligences in beatitude of being. 

It is to diffuse » cheering hope if not a certain knowl- 
edge of this glorious destiny, and impart to my friends 
at least a portion of the pleasure I have derived from its 
study, that I make this effort: for certainly it has 
proved to me the greatest source of the purest pleasure 
and extatic delight and serene comfort that I have ever 
found amid all the creeds of theology and religion and 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFK. 19 

systems of ethics and philosophy, from the days of Soc- 
rates, and yet earlier, of the Hindo Rama and Yudis- 
athira. It weaves a woof of hope around the heart of 
despair, and winds its warp within the storied temple 
of immortality. It sheds celestial sunshine around the 
cold and cheerless chambers of the soul ; and amid all 
the anguish accumulated from untold sorrows and afflic- 
tions, and wailings without end, for our loved and lost, 
this should be our consolation, and a consolation fraught 
with the full fruition of immortal aspirations beyond 
the sweep of sorrow's wing, where we shall meet our 
loved and lost in a realm untarnished with a tear, where 
the dirge of death shall never start an echo, and where 
the memory of a hell without hope and separation 
without end,, shall never awaken a wail of woe to sound 
upon its shores. God's multitude of matured children 
and developed angels, now full-fledged sons of immor- 
tality,, soar up round the concentric spheres in rainbow 
realms of seraphim; and their choral melodies rever- 
berate along the vocal voids until lost in distant echo 
amid the misty embryonic nebula of uncreated worlds, 
floating in the far-off ether, awaiting the development 
and maturity of their destiny. Planet speaks, with 
neighboring planet, star telegraphs to distant star, world 
resounds to world nature's grand oratorio that fills the 
universe with melody; and scintillant suns without 
number spin out their myriad threads of light that fill 
creation, and weave the luminous mantle to clothe in 
robes of radiant corruscations all this bright and bur- 
nished blazonry of God ! 

But it is not my purpose to deal alone in declamation, 
poetic pictures, or high-wrought hyberbole ; nor indulge 



20 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

solely in the sublime ; you ask for the philosophy and 
science, and to the best of my ability, inwith the limits 
of a lecture not to exceed two or three hours, for longer 
than that I shall not be able in my usual, rapid, impas- 
sioned manner to speak, nor you willing to hear, I 
cheerfully give them. I am truly glad to "see so much 
interest and solicitude evinced, and by such an auditory, 
in this grand and glorious science. I would that I had 
ability and opportunity commensurate with its vast 
import and amplitude. 

The philosophy of life involves not only its origin, 
but, and principally, its object, and this object involves 
our duty and our destiny; hence to consider these we 
must necessarily trench more or less on all systems of 
religion, which originally was called philosophy, but I 
shall treat alone of that in vogue with us and enlight- 
ened Christendom. 

In following the bent of my inclinations, unlike 
Goethe, the early years of my manhood were devoted 
mainly to the study of physical, and the later to psy- 
chical science ; and being endued by nature with large 
religiosty, or what phrenology calls spirituality and 
veneration, the older I grow the more devoted I become 
to the science of the soul. My humble career has also 
been to some extent the contrary of Coleridge, who 
commenced life an infidel and closed it a christian, 
according to some biographers. I was early rocked in 
the plastic cradle of mesmeric Methodism, but from 
scientific investigation, if not from intuition, found its 
contracted confines could not contain the true philoso- 
phy of human life, the true scheme of creation, and 
exalted ideas or proper conceptions of the Creator ; and 



PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 21 

these contracted confines are large to many sister or 
brother denominations. Though not an infidel in its 
literal import, yet if refusing to take the bible or any 
other book on faith in toto, and rejecting it as the 
infallible word of God, regardless of His philosophy, 
make me infidel, then I am such ; but if accepting this 
wonderful book of antiquity on a rational interpretation 
subject to the philosophic explanations and corrections, 
or general exegesis of science, which is the organum 
'©f nature, and throwing out its evident fables and super- 
venient interpolations, make me a Christian, then I am 
a rational and rationalistic Christian. Whether my 
progressive change, or the change of Coleridge, be the 
result of mental maturity or mental senility or moral 
degeneracy, for Coleridge let his aberrations and pla- 
giarisms, for me let my philosophy and life, and for 
both, let science, the organon of God, answer. - I 
believe in the cardinal truths of the bible as founded in 
philosophy, approved by science and sustained by the 
laws of nature and the light of reason and common 
sense ; but I cannot believe the whole bible with its 
palpable contradictions and absurdities, immanities and 
inhumanities, as founded in faith, disproved by science 
and refuted by well-known laws of nature, and obnox- 
ious to reason and common sense. And you will find that 
my philosophy supports and it is the only philosophy 
that does sustain the truths of the bible, and without it 
the bible must fall ; under the modern march of mind 
this thaumaturgical book cannot stand on mere faith, it 
must have the support of science and philosophy or fall 
like fabulous myth. The bible is a record of Spiritualism 
or it is record of fable. My opinions on this great 



22 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

subject are not the mushroom growth of a moment; they 
have matured from profound investigation, laborious 
research and assiduous study; honestly, independently, 
defiantly, for the threat of eternal torment has not 
terrified me, nor am I intimidated by popular or 
unpopular opinion as you well know. Public opinion 
can have nothing to do with me in striving to learn my 
duty and my destiny; and if there is truth in eternal 
torment, certainly it can not be intended for one sin- 
cerly seeking truth and striving faithfully to do his duty 
and learn his destiny. With science as the unerring 
touchstone and reason the guide, one, the book of 
nature's God, and the other, the God-gifted light to 
read it by, I seek and vindicate truth, and shun and 
combat error, whether under the name of infidel, 
Christian, Spiritualist, or Pagan; whether in the bible 
or Koran, or the code of Menu. 

"At this time, in the maturity of mankind, as with 
man in the maturity of his powers, the great lever 
which moves the world is knowledge, the great force is 
the intellect. So valuable, even above all things, 
(excepting only godliness,) is clear thought, that the 
labors of the statesman are far below those of the philos- 
opher, in duration, in power, and in beneficial results. 
Thought is now higher than action, unless action be 
inspired with the very breath of Heaven. For we are 
now men, governed by principles if governed at all, 
and cannot rely any longer on the impulses of youth, 
or the discipline of childhood." Thus writes Dr. Temple. 
Another distinguished orthodox writer says : — " Every 
day makes it more and more evident that the thorough 
study of the Bible, the investigation' of what it teaches 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 23 

and what it does not teach, the determination of the 
limits of what we mean by its inspiration, the deter- 
mination of the degree of authority to be ascribed to 
the different books, if any degrees are to be admitted, 
must take leave of all other studies. He is guilty of 
high treason against the faith who fears the result of 
any investigation, whether philosophical, or scientific, or 
historical. And therefore, nothing shtuld be more 
welcome than the extension of knowledge of any and of 
every kind— for every increase in our accumulations of 
knowledge throws fresh light upon the real problems of 
the day. If geology proves to us that we must not 
interpret the first chapter of Genesis literally ; if histori- 
cal investigation shall show us that inspiration, however 
it may protect the doctrine, yet was not empowered to 
protect the narrative of the inspired writers from occa- 
sional inaccuracy; if careful criticism shall prove that 
there have been occasionally interpolations and forgeries 
in that book, as in many others ; the results should still 
be welcome — as clearing away blunders which may have 
been fastened on it by human interpretation." " If we 
have made mistakes, careful study may teach us better." 
A christian periodical of this country, " Inquirer," thus 
quotes from an English "Country Parson;" " It must be 
admitted, with great regret, that people who make a 
considerable profession of religion, have succeeded in 
making themselves more thoroughly disagreeable than 
almost any other human beings — extremely uncharita- 
ble, una mi able, repulsive, stupid, and intensly 
opinionated and self-satisfied. I have seen more 
deliberate malice, more lying and cheating, more back- 
biting and slandering, denser stupidity and greater self- 



24 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

sufficiency, among bad -hearted and wrong-headed 
religionists than among any other human beings. I 
have known more malignity and slander conveyed in 
the form of prayers, than should have consigned an 
ordinary slanderer to the pillory." 

Thus you see I am sustained in my rationalism, or if 
you prefer, iconoclasm, by high church authority, with- 
out quoting Bishop Colenzo, whose mind has bounded 
an age beyond his generation, and his numerous sympa- 
thizers in England. And I may not without just pride, 
say of myself that my opinions were formed independent 
and without knowledge of these authorities. My 
reading too on the subject of religion has been confined 
to orthodox (so claimed) christian authors. But of all 
this anon. 

The greatest study of mankind is man, the greatest 
lesson of our lives is to learn ourselves, which is in fact 
the sum total of all learning; a lesson unlearned, all 
other learning's naught. Our duty and our destiny, 
the end, and aim, and object and origin of our existence 
have always absorbed and always will absorb and 
monopolize the brightest intellects that shed radiance 
over the dark precincts of time. All the great minds 
that have graced the annals of all the ages have devoted 
their energies to solve this mighty problem of them- 
selves. To men of mind, in contradistinction to men of 
matter, it is the problem, our only problem. 

" Man, know thyself — there all wisdom centers/' 
says Dr. Young. Thales said " the most difficult thing 
in nature is to know ourselves, the most easy to advise 
others." Chilo had engraved in letters of gold in the 
Temple of Apollo, at Delphi, this aphorism : "Know 
thyself." 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 25 

I shall first give a short account of the constituent 
elements and composition of man's corporeal casket, — 
its origin and end. 

I'll next show from history both sacred and profane, 
that mankind in all ages have witnessed Spiritual 
Manifestations in various forms, but without under- 
standing them. I shall here offer some arguments on 
our immortality. 

I shall cite to your notice some of the developments 
of modern science ; and after showing the utter inade- 
quacy of the bible and all past revelations to satisfy and 
stabilitate the modern materialist, your minds will be 
prepared to expect and receive the new philosophy. 

I shall then endeavor to explain this philosophy as 
evolved by modern science^ and with a brief peroration,. 
or appeal to men of science to inspect its muniments, 
will conclude my discourse; — happy if in the most 
sententious and summary manner I may succeed within 
three hours. And I would ask to be distinctly under- 
stood and impressed upon your minds, that everything 
human, every intelligence below God and perhaps hi& 
highest arch -an gels, is fallible; that, except to cheer the' 
heart without hope, — and isn't this enough ? I da not 
wish you to be influenced by my opinions in renouncing 
other and perhaps safer creeds beyond the renunciation 
of exclusiveness, intolerance, bigotry,, cruelty and all 
ecclesiastical despotism, for I would not incur such 
responsibility on such mementous interests. I would 
reverently invoke the grand and governing spirit whose 
ubiquitous presence permeates the Universe, to stop my 
tongue ere i£fc utter a cardinal error, or essay to shake 
the faith of the truly happy, if there be such ; I would 
2 



26 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

not propagate a fatal delusion for the sake of a temporary 
comfort, nor do I stoop to the vocation of proselyting ; 
but I counsel you to investigate for yourselves as I have 
done for myself; and if you find a philosophy like an 
adamantine pillar upon which to lean your tottering 
spirit and become convinced and satisfied of its sublime 
truth, you will derive ineffable comfort and unfailing 
support, and add a new and higher charm to life than 
ever it possessed before; and if not, you will certainly 
have lost nothing by the labor. 

Enlightened intellect, a strong clear mind with true 
philosophy, must always believe a truth that is demon- 
strable, whether all the abstract or concrete principles 
of that truth be understood and comprehended or not. 
This latter (comprehension) cannot enter into a question 
of mere credence or credibility ; understanding, properly 
has nothing to do with believing. As the sequel will 
prove, this is not said from conscious weakness, with 
the view to beg in the beginning, as the preachers are 
wont to do, skillfully preparing specious premises in 
order to lead with facility into false conclusions. 

How frequent it is for us to say, "we believe it but 
don't understand it." Can we say of a fact that we 
understand but don't believe ? We may believe with- 
out understanding, but cannot understand a fact or 
truth without believing, for this very, understanding of 
a truth or fact necessitates the truth or fact. But in 
this we are liable to the error of mistaking a false theory 
for a true philosophy. We may always detect and avoid 
this error however, by remembering that theory is 
derived from the fallible mind of man, while philosophy 
is derived from and founded on the infallible phenomena 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. At 

of nature. Now, when to the eye of reason and com- 
mon sense science evolves a philosophy founded on these 
infallible criteria, are we not bound to embrace the 
philosophy if we believe the phenomena? And are we 
not bound to belive the phenomena if they are in accor- 
dance with known laws of nature and other cognate 
facts? But believing is not knowing — a truce to this 
Spencerian style — absolute positive knowledge is what 
we want; and our only source of positive knowl- 
edge is science, which is made up of collected and 
collated experiences, and developed and systemized 
facts and phenomena, all which we may obtain by 
careful study and energetic effort. These and these 
alone, constitute certain satisfactory knowledge. As 
a striking, but not very elegant illustration, you 
may tell me, an athletic man, that Mr. B., a delicate 
man, can knock me down. I may not believe it. You will 
affirm and bring many credible witnesses to prove that 
Mr. B. has knocked them down and many other stouter 
men than I, and of course can easily do the same with 
me. I may then be induced to believe it by the great 
amount of credible testimony you bring; but do not 
and can not know it until Mr. B. actually performs the 
operation visibly and tangibly, and palpably and un- 
mistakably, id est, knocks me down. Then, and not 
till then, I positively know it. It would be, or ought 
to be impossible then to make me doubt, by rep 
resenting that I was mistaken, that it was some other 
man, or some other cause that knocked me down, or 
that I was not knocked down at all, that the ground 
flew up and struck me and not I that fell to the ground. 
This is what I would call a knock-down argument and 



28 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

carries both the irresistible, physical force and moral 
demonstration of absolute knowledge. Now as applied 
to this new Philosophy of Life, I frankly confess that 
no such knock-down demonstration has occurred to my 
personal cognition, and I cannot therefore aver that I 
know it to be true; but the numbers and reputable 
character of the testimony and the amount and scientific 
nature of the evidence in its support, to say nothing of 
my intuition of its goodness, its grandeur and its glory, 
are vastly superior to that supporting any other religion, 
or philosophy of life, or system of ethics, and irresistibly 
compels me to believe it, and embrace it, and throw 
the anchor of my hope within the storied temple of its 
splendid pavilions. 

Again, we reject many truths when first presented, 
which afterwards upon investigation command our 
credence. For example, it seems anomalous and incred- - 
ible to assert that more men die in a healthy country 
than in a sickly one ; but such is a demonstrable truth 
which will command not only our credence but absolute 
knowledge when we investigate it by the light of 
science and submit it to that great gift of the Creator, 
common sense or reason. A thousand people placed in 
a sickly country would, in a hundred years increase but 
little, perhaps decrease ; but the same number placed in 
a healthy country would multiply rapidly, and in a few 
generations the deaths from this dense population would 
of course greatly outnumber the deaths from the com- 
paratively sparse population of the unhealthy region, 
for men must necessarily die everywhere from decrepitude 
or by disease. Thus it is demonsrable that in the 
course of a century or of severa] generations, a greater 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 2.9 

number of people die in a salubrious than in an insalu- 
brious country, however, at first thought we may have 
rejected the truth as absurd and impossible. And it 
appears false to say that there is water in dry inflamable 
gunpowder, and that much the largest portion of the 
human body is water instead of solid matter; but su^h 
are facts proved by science. 

Hence, from these illustrations let us learn first, last, 
and all the time, not to reject or accept anything with- 
out thorough and patient investigation, and not 
dogmatically even then, for this investigation though 
seeming thorough and patient to us, may prove partial 
and incomplete from prejudice, predilection, ignorance, 
or indolence. This is specially and particularly and 
emphatically applicable to the great and momentous 
subject of our duty and destiny, which is our religion. 
Enough of this prolusion. 

That part of the subject whieh relates only to our 
perishing bodies shall be disposed of in few words. 
I said man's corporeal frame is elaborated from the 
rocks. I will read from .a popular writer on modern 
chemistry, Yeomans : 

" We are accustomed to conceive of the creation of 
man as a dim, miraculous event of the most ancient 
time, half forgetting that God's scheme of managing the 
living world is one of perpetual creation. Had our 
earth been formed of an eternal adamant, subject to no 
vicissitudes of change through all the cycles of duration, 
Ave might perhaps well refer to the act of bringing it 
into existence, as especially illustrative of creative 
power. But where all is changing, transitory, and 
incessantly disolving away, so that nothing remains 



30 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

immutable but God's conception of being, which the 
whole universe is forever hastening to realize, we can 
not escape the conviction of his immediate, living, om- 
nipresent, constructive agency. The truth is, we are 
hourly and momentarily created, and it is impossible to 
imagine in what respect the first act of creative power 
was more wonderful or glorious, or afforded any more 
conspicuous display of omnipotent wisdom than that 
august procession of phenomena by which man and the 
entire living world are now and continually called into 
being. Those material atoms which are to-day inter- 
posed between us and destruction, are recent from chaos ; 
they were but yesterday formless dust of the earth, cor- 
roded and pulverized rocks, or fleeting and viewless 
gases of the air. These, through the vast enginery of 
astronomic systems, whose impulses of movement spring 
directly from the Almighty Will, have entered a world 
of organic order, are wrought into new states, and made 
capable of nourishing the animal body. The mingled 
gases and mineral dust have become vital aliment. 
The test-miracle which the Tempter of old demanded as 
evidence of God-like Power, is disclosed to the eye of 
science, as a result of natural laws ; for in the most lit— 
teral sense, ' stones are made bread.' That it was de- 
signed for us to understand what goes on within the 
body, we are not at liberty to doubt. Instead of being 
the theatre of a mysterious power which defies investi- 
gation, we find the living system acting under allegiance 
to invariable laws, and entirely amenable to investiga- 
tion. The whole course of physiological discovery has 
consisted in showing that the human constitution is an 
'^ibodyment and illustration of reason. The victory 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 31 

of research is to understand a thing; that is, to bring 
it into agreement with reason. The mechanism of the 
eye was a mystery until its optical adaptations and pur- 
poses were discovered ; that is the reason of its con- 
struction. 

The heart was an object of mere curious wonder and 
superstitious speculations, until the circulation was dis- 
covered, when the reasonable uses of its parts were at 
once understood. The whole scope and drift of past 
inquiry, and all the considerations which cluster around 
the subject, lead us to expect and demand a rational 
explanation of living processes. Not many years ago 
the most acute and distinguished physicians regarded 
the stomach as the abode of a conjurer, who, if respect- 
fully treated, and in good humor, can change thistles, 
hay, roots, fruits and seeds into blood and flesh; but 
when angry, despises or spoils the best food! Chem- 
istry has dispelled these crude fancies, and enabled us to 
understand how such marvelous transformations occur. 
We are getting, daily, clews to the profounder secrets of 
the organism; knowledge is here as rapidly progressing 
as in any other department of science." 

Says another distinguished contemporary, Tiifony : 
" Were I to enquire what is the apparent design of 
every thing we behold, we must see that it is pointing 
to the ultimating of an individualized, immortal, inteli- 
gent being, who should be capable of understanding 
all truth, and being perfected in every true affection. 
Every thing tends to bring about that great result — the 
unfolding of an immortal being. God and the materia 1 
universe seem to be laboring to beget an individualized 
being in the image of both God and the universe — God 



32 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

as the absolute and infinite, and matter as the finite, 
uniting, produce a being which partakes of both the 
absolute or infinite, and the finite. When viewed from 
one plain he is infinite; when viewed from another 
plain he is finite : so that between God and matter man 
is mediate. I would say, then, in simple language, God 
is the father of the spirit, and matter the mother of his 
form. The first step in the path of unfolding, as 
taught by nature, is that of individualizing form. The 
next step is that of individualizing life, of producing 
individuality. The last step is that of producing per- 
sonality — making the individual a personal being. 
If we can suppose that matter shall be divested from 
all connection with media which can impress upon it a 
condition, we speak of it as being amorphous matter, or 
matter without form. If we unite it then with one 
medium, as electricity, we find it tending to produce 
the gaseous condition, the nebular condition. Form is 
not yet attained. If we unite with it still another 
medium which is a little different from electricity, forms 
of the mineral kingdom are produced. We have here 
the first degree of form, but as yet there is not life or 
individuality. Now the next advance is to induce in 
that form a condition which shall make it receptive of 
life, for that which is to be individualized is life. So, 
then, in passing through the elaborating influence of 
the mineral kingdom, it arrives at a certain point, a sort 
of culminating point, where it joins upon the vegetable 
kingdom. When the principal known as the life-force 
is introduced, then it is understood that mineral has 
passed, and the vegetable is commenced. As soon as 
this is unfolded, we have a second advance of form: 



PHILOSOPPIY OF LIFE. 33 

organic life in its first degree ; or in other words, indi- 
vidualization commences. Form passed to its second 
degree, and goes on elaborating degree after degree, pro- 
ducing diverse organic forms, until it is prepared to 
receive another and a more interior principle — con- 
sciousness—until, fey imperceptible degrees, we arrive 
at the annimal kingdom. We have then the animal 
form, the third or finishing degree of form, and the 
second degree of life, and the first degree of conscious- 
ness. Man in his animal nature is the completion of 
the highest form. Life has yet one more degree to pass 
through; consciousness has yet two more degrees to 
pass through before it is complete. The next advance 
is to a higher principle of consciousness, to a more 
enduring principle of life, without the material form, 
and that is to the spiritual degree of unfolding. Man 
becomes to us the highest type of form and life in the 
finite; and becomes immortal by his relation to the 
divine — to that which is self-existent and self-sufficient, 
and has that condition brought into him by induction." 
Again, from another, — "Reveries of a Student:" 
" Man is the apex of earth creation and the basis of 
ail heavenly life — the foundation of all spiritual exist- 
ence. Standing thus in a middle plain, as the highest 
thing of -earth and the lowest of heaven, he holds mag- 
netic relationship to both r, the earth not only sup- 
plying the physical requirements of his being, such as 
food, drink and air, but he absorbs impalpable nourish- 
ment from all his surroundings: the aroma from flow- 
ers, and trees and fruit, as well as the magnetic emana- 
tions from people intuitively appreciating harmonious 
influences — feeling an instinctive repulsion when under 
*2 



34 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

those that are inharmonious. This antagonism we call 
antipathy ; and biography abounds with strange stories 
of its' individual action. An animal is but a highly 
organized combination of the chemical forces of the 
earth, returning to the earth when death ensues ; the 
only good resulting from its life is that gross matter 
has been changed into a little higher condition by the 
combination. Man regarded as the animal, possesses 
nothing after his death but the spiritual attributes be 
has received, corresponding to the physical things he 
sought in his earthly life; if that was low- and sensual, 
his spiritual condition will be the same; for the spirit 
land is as much a spiritual condition as it is a place. 
As man's external form grows from appropriating sub- 
stance from earth, so are thoughts and sentiments, all 
things relating to the soul, appropriated from the spirit 
world. Take the earth from man and he ceases to exist 
as a physical being; take the spirit world from him 
and he ceases to exist as an immortal being." 

When a youth, a mere boy, in my mental rumina- 
tions and cogitations to which I've ever been addicted, 
I traced every thing to the earth; and since then I 
have seen it recorded as a sapient observation of Thomas 
Jefferson, that he had arrived at the same conclusion, 
that every thing comes from the earth. But Jefferson, 
as well as the boy, was in egregrious error, for all 
things are dependent on actinic and other astronomic 
influences, and the spiritual development of man is 
effectuated through supernal or spiritual agencies and 
elements. The earth is but a negative female reposi- 
tory of physical elements which are fecundated and 
vitalized by solar and other supernal cognate elements 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 35 

of inchoate life. Among the many theories of the wise 
men of the ancients, for the principle of all things, of 
Thales, of Bias, Epimenides, Anaxagoras, Heraclitns, 
Democritus, Aristotle, Zeno, and others, that of Arche- 
laus ascribing all things to matter and spirit, is the 
most true, and the only true, as confirmed by science. 

Says Agassiz, in which Prof. Owen, another high 
authority, concurs : " The aim of the Creator in form- 
ing the earth, in allowing it to undergo the successive 
changes which geology has pointed out, and in creating 
successively all the different types of animals which 
have passed away, was to introduce man upon the sur- 
face of our globe. Man is the end toward which ail 
the animal creation has tended from the first appearance 
of fhe first palaeozoic fishes." 

All nature is in motion — there is nothing still, noth- 
ing passive. Motion, evolution, progress, is the pri- 
mordial law of creation and the insignia of destiny 
Every thing, from the apparently inert elements of the 
primitive rocks which requires centuries to work a per- 
ceptible change, to the vivid lightning's flash that anni- 
hilates all idea of time and the computation of a mo- 
ment for its almost instantaneous work; from the most 
minute atom to the vast orbs that sail the ethereal 
ocean; is moving, evolving, progressing. This philos- 
ophy underlies the theory of spontaneous production, 
which, with all deference to its late opponents, is as 
beautiful as its true. And while all nature is thus 
laboring, laboring always to elaborate higher forms 
and higher life, man can not stand still — he must either 
progress or retrograde. It is an organic law of his 
life to labor, to work, mentally and physically — the 



36 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

latter for the former — and all for what? For the sim- 
ple gratification of his animal appetencies — eating and 
drinking? This is cold comfort even for the epicure, 
to labor twelve hours and get hungry for the poor 
pleasure of eating less than one hour. The monkey 
would fulfill the condition as well. What then? to 
labor for life merely to gratify a curiosity to see what 
we shall see, or hear what we shall hear? for curiosity 
jr a love of the marvelous is a powerful impulse in 
ignorant minds. It were beneath the dignity and 
anworthy the wisdom of a God to implant this instinct 
for such ignoble purposes. No ; here is the philosophy 
in terse and sententious and significant words : we labor 
for food to be transmuted into a germinal condition for 
the physiological development of an organism on which 
a higher cerebral differentiation may be superinduced, 
receptive of a supernal fecundation, and which will 
extend and ultimately people the higher spheres with 
happy beings, clothed in immortality and love. This 
is worthy of all human instincts and aspirations, and of 
creative beneficence; and this is the philosophy of 
human life as unfolded by facts, observed and system- 
ized, which constitute the organon of science. 

Chemical science proves that our mortal tenement, 
upon the cessation of its functions called death, decom- 
poses and settles back into its original elements. These 
elements are divided into metalic and non-metalic sub- 
stances. The metalic are Potassium, Sodium, Calcium, 
Magnesium, Aluminum, Iron, Manganese, and Copper. 
The non-metalic substances are Oxygen, Hydrogen, 
Carbon, Nitrogen, Silicium, Phosphorus, Sulphur, Chlo- 
rine, and perhaps other*, both metalic and non-metalic. 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 37 

And these become scattered, diffused, blended, and enter 
again into other combinations, intimating in conscious 
life; and thus the process continues ad infinitum. 
Eighty per centum of the human body is water, and a 
large proportion is composed of and returns to, invisi- 
ble gases, leaving but a small amount of mineral resi- 
duum. The ultimate materials of the average human 
body, according to Dr. Lardner, are 14 lbs. charcoal, 
10 lbs. lime, 120 lbs. water and 14 lbs. of the gases 
which form air and water, that is, oxygen, nitrogen and 
hydrogen. These recognized elements may yet be 
reduced by science to one, viz. : electricity. 

An eccentric gentleman of devoted affection in 
France, adopting the old Greek and Roman method of 
cremation, so succeeded in condensing and reducing the 
mineral remains of his deceased wife, by repeated pro- 
cesses of incineration, as to be contained in a locket 
which he wore on his finger. 

I read from Dr. Draper: "Since it is given us to 
know our own existence, and be conscious of our own 
individuality, we may rest assured that we have what 
is in reality a far more wonderful power, the capacity 
of comprehending all the conditions of our life. God 
has formed our understanding to grasp all these things. 
For my own part I have no sympathy with those who 
say of this or that physiological problem, it is above 
our reason. My faith in the power of the intellect of 
man is profound. Far from supposing that there are 
many things in the structure and functions of the body 
which we can never comprehend, I believe there is 
nothing in it that we shall not at last explain. Then, 
and not till then, will man be a perfect monument of 



38 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

the wisdom and power of his maker; a created being, 
knowing his own existence, and- capable of explain- 
ing it." 

How different is this from Solomon, who, under the 
title of preacher, wrote, "As thou knowest not what is 
the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow," &c, 
(Ecc. XI.) verily, 

''As wise as 1 ' Solomon ''might justly stand 
The definition of a modern fool.* 1 

But being a wise man, I presume he adopted the title 
to excuse his ignorance. 

Now for our angel immortalities ; and we shall find 
upon proper investigation, that our circumambient airy 
ocean is redolent with the incense of angels, and has 
ever been vocal with the anthems of immortal organs 
hymning the Eternal Father. 

Ere science first unfurled her starry wing, or mid- 
night melted into dewy morn — the moral midnight of 
the human mind — or man had learned to soar in cer- 
tain flight from earth, his infant cradle of immortal 
life, the faint effulgence of this innate hope of immor- 
tality, with healing in its rays, had risen and thrown 
its first feeble flood-lights athwart the glimmering sky. 
Ever and anon, amid the multiplied, multiform and 
multifarious events and vicissitudes of life, its varied 
and various conditions and altitudes of intellection, its 
mutations and trans-mutations, metamorphoses and 
mayhap metempsychoses, the ever-living and ever- 
glowing hope of the human heart, like the sunlight 
that fringes the mountain tops, flings its radiance along 
the heights of history, past, present and prospective, 
and robes all human annals in the attire of angelic im- 
mortality. 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 39 

Let us look into the annals of the past ages; and 
first, sacred history, as it purports to be the oldest 
record. We are told that an angel appeared to Hager, 
Gen. XVI; three to Abraham, XXII; one spoke to 
Jacob in a dream, Gen. XXXI; one to Moses, in Ex. 
Ill ; one to the camp of Israel, Ex. XIV ; one met 
Balaam, Num. XXII; one spoke to the children of 
Israel, Judges II; one to Gideon, Judges VI; one 
appeared to Manoah's wife, Judges XIII; Samuel 
appeared and conversed with Saul and two men, and 
the woman of Endor, 1st Sam. XXVIII; — which is 
the first intimation of human immortality, I believe, in 
the Bible, after a chronological record of 3000 years. 
Indeed, Moses, as far as the Pentateuch teaches, seems 
to have had no aspiration, or even thought, of here- 
after, seeking only the extermination of all opposing 
him, — good land and cattle, and I presume, plenty of 
potatoes and pigs. There is many a Moses among us 
now; — one to Elijah, 1st Kings, XIX; one stood on 
the threshing floor of Onan, .1st Chrom XXI; one 
talked with Zecheriah, in Zech. 1st; one to the two 
Marys at the sepulchre, in Mathew XXVIII ; one fore- 
told the birth of John the Baptist, in Luke I; one ap- 
peared to the virgin Mary, Luke I; one to the two 
shepherds, Luke II ; one opened the doors of Peter's 
prison, Acts V; two spoke to Jesus, Peter, James and 
John, Luke IX ; one to John, some to Paul, and many 
appeared in Jerusalem at the crucifixion, and to others, 
and numbers at divers times and places as recorded. 
Many of these angels also explicitly avowed themselves 
to be fellow-servants, who formerly lived in the flesh. 
This is enough from the records of Christian theology. 



40 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 

And nearly, if not all, the early Christian Fathers im- 
mediately succeeding the apostolic age, cherished the 
belief of the ministering spirits of their former friends 
deceased; and ancient Buddhism and medieval Mon- 
tanism is modern Spiritualism without its philosophy 
or science. Tertullian, an old and recognized authority, 
called them "angelified flesh." 

Religion is the strongest principle that actuates the 
human heart, as I well know from my own experience, 
as well as from observation and history. From the 
latter we learn that in the "Holy" (?) Wars of the 
Cross vs. the Crescent — may the sacred symbol of the 
lettered scroll never stain with human blood its celes- 
tial sheen — the Crusades, two million men were killed, 
and a pyramid was erected from their bones from one 
battlefield near Mece, by Solyman, as a monument to 
their fanaticism ; and the Saracens drank beer out of 
their skulls. History tells us that in the religious 
Christian conflicts following the reformation of Lu- 
ther — at which time the Popes were the legitimate des- 
pots of the whole world, and made kings and national 
rulers their abject vassals and suppliant slaves, subject 
to their tyranic caprices, which they exercised in the 
most diabolical manner, and all by divine appointment, 
— fifty millions were slain — making a grand aggregate 
of perhaps a hundred millions who, in the history of 
mankind, have victimized themselves to their religion. 
The skeletons of these victims of religion if linked to- 
gether, would pave a path with human bones more than 
si hundred thousand miles long, would girdle the world 
more than four times round, would build a structure 
larger than Colossus, Colisseum or Pyramid. What 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 41 

else can impel a man to throw himself under the car of 
Juggernaut to be instantly crushed ? What else impel 
a mother to sacrifice her child, as the Africans to the 
Ganges ? or the Chaldean to the Hierapolis ? Man in 
every age is a devout religionist : it is an innate and in- 
eradicable principle in his nature to conceive of and 
imagine a higher mind, to hope for immortality and 
yearn for glory. Let us leave the Bible and range a 
wider field. 

Fetishism, which is the lowest form of worship, and 
Brahmanism, with Avator, Vishnu and Llama, and the 
three million deities and angels of Asia, and the un- 
known number of Africa, who are all claimed as min- 
istering spirits around their friends in mortal tenements, 
all are teeming with the hope of hereafter and replete 
with the faith of the future. In our occidental hemi- 
sphere the aboriginal Indians cherished the tradition 
of a Great Spirit and endless hunting grounds here- 
after. The old Aztec empire of the South had their 
"Eagle mountain," on which they burnt incense as a 
holy holocaust, and their gods Huitzilopotehille and 
Quetzatcoate to whom they sacrificed their thousands ; 
and the Totonac temples that resounded with the shrieks 
of victims to propitiate the ire of their avenging deities. 
If we turn again to the fertile fields of the Oriental 
world, we see the nomandic wanderers of the desert, 
the wild Bedouin, paying devout oblations to his adored 
Allah ; the refined dwellers of imperial Rome and classic 
Greece erecting pantheons and temples to some great 
unknown and to all the gods ; while the Talmud of the 
Mischna and Gemara, the Zend Avesta of the Persian, 
the Veda and Shaster of the Hindoo, the Koran of the 



42 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

Moslem, the Guadana of the Burmesee, the Xaca Amida 
of the Japanese, the Tien and Chaiigti of the Chinese 
and the legends of Confucius, the runic Edda of the 
Scythian, and the whole theology, or rather mythology, 
of all the Scandinavian nations, except the Huns, all 
seek to centre the minds of their millions upon some 
object of homage and adoration as a panacea for their 
ills, a haven of rest for their tumultuated hopes. The 
atheistic European, the polytheistic Asiatic, and the 
spiritual American, all — save perhaps the priesthood in 
the time of Leo X, according to Erasmus — believe in 
and yearn for a hereafter. And it is worthy remark 
that the only people who never had an organized priest- 
hood, viz : the aboriginal Americans, are the possessors 
of the most true, the most simple, the most natural 
and the most philosophical religion. 

Eev. Mr. Go^erlv in his translation of the Damina 
Parkl-a written in Pali, makes Buddha repeatedly speak 
of a future life. Hear Buddha : " The sinner suffers 
in this world, and he will suffer in the next world — in 
both worlds he suffers. The virtuous man rejoices in 
this world, and he will rejoice in the next world — in 
both worlds he has joy." This great Hindoo prophet* 
" whose code of ethics equals that of any other reli- 
gion," in the words of the scholar who published the 
UsTdakas of the Rig Vede, flourished eight centuries be- 
fore the advent of Jesus Christ, and the contemporane- 
ous Gymnosophists of India were wont to send messages 
to their departed friends by those who were about to 
die. Confucius, who lived five centuries before Christ, 
is said to have proclaimed the golden rule of doing unto 
others as we would have others do unto us; and so did 
Hillel, the Jew. 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 4o 

Let us turn also from these dim legends and tradi- 
tions and look to those illustrious characters that loom 
up along the pathway of the past like lights from etern- 
ity. Come forth, soul of Socrates, and awaken once 
more your mighty memories that give a glory to phi- 
losophy ! " The 'cause of this is that which you have 
often and in many places heard me mention ; because I 
am moved by a certain divine and spiritual influence, 
which also Melitus, through mockery, has set out in the 
indictment. This began with me from childhood, be- 
ing a kind of voice which, when present, always diverts 
me from what I am about to do, but never urges me 
on. But this duty, as I said, has been enjoined me by 
the Deity, by oracles, by dreams, and by every other 
mode by which any other divine decree has ever en- 
joined any thing for man to do." Toward the close of 
his last address before his judges, Socrates said, speak- 
ing of his death and the future life, " If this be true, 
O, my judges, what greater good can there be than this? 
At what rate would not either of you purchase . a con- 
ference with Orpheus and Musaeus, with Hesiod and 
Homer, or with Ulysses or Sisyphus, or ten thousand 
others, both male and female, that might be mentioned? 
For to converse and associate with them would be an 
inestimable felicity. Truly, I should be willing to die 
often if these things are true." His friend Crito in- 
quired of him how he would be buried. " Just as you 
please," said he, " i. e. if you can find me ;" at the 
same time smiling and saying, " Crito thinks that J 
am he whom he will shortly see dead, whereas I, Soc- 
rates, shall have then departed to the joys of the 
blessed." " Unless I thought," said he, " that I should 



44 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

depart to other gods who are wise and good, and to the 
society of men who have gone from this life and are 
better now than when among us, I might well be trou- 
bled at death. But now I believe assuredly that I shall 
go to the gods who are perfectly good, and I hope to 
dwell with wise and good men, so that I cannot be af- 
flicted at the thought of dying; believing that death is 
not the end of us, and that it will be much better for 
the good than the evil." He claimed an ever present 
demon, so called by the Greeks, or tutelary genius as 
termed by the Latins, or presiding or ministering angel 
with us, who always faithfully warned or wooed him 
every day, and as this was omitted on the day of his 
death, he hence considered his death no evil. His last 
words, when sinking under the fatal Hemlock, were a 
charge to pay a debt he had overlooked, and " not neg- 
lect it." 

Speak, spirit of Plato ! who rent the curtain that 
binds the future of other men's visions and read through 
the vista of unborn years ! " The soul is self-mot've. 
That which is self-motive inherently and perpetually 
moves. But that which always moves with an inward 
motion always lives. Hence the soul is immortal. 
Again, if the soul is self-motive, it is itself the princi- 
pal of motion, but the principal of motion must be un- 
begotten, and of course immortal. Again, nothing 
foreign to itself can ever destroy it ; and its own evils, 
such as injustice and wickedness, can not destroy it, 
since they render it, if possible, more alive and sensible 
to suffering than before." And again, says Plato in 
the Phaedrus : " We are then initiated into and made 
spectators of entire, simple, quietly stable and blessed 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. "45 

visions, resident in a pure light, being ourselves pure, 
and liberated from this surrounding vestment which 
we call body, and to which we are now bound like an 
oyster to his shell. Among the eternal emanations of 
which I have spoken were not only gods of different 
orders — the intelligible and intellectual, the super 
celestial and mundane — but also daemons, heroes, and 
the souls of men. The daemons were an order of be- 
ings superior to ourselves, some good and some bad, oc- 
cupying a sort of middle between gods and men." 
While Plato thus perceived a germ or principle in man 
which was to unfold into future perfections, he also had 
a just conception of the average of mankind on the in- 
ceptive earth-plane, as is evidenced by his remark that 
" man is a biped without feathers." 

Lend us another echo of your eloquence, O Cicero, 
and proclaim to mortal man the immortality of his hu- 
man soul divine. " I look forward with pleasure to 
the' glorious day when I shall go into the great assem- 
bly of spirits and shall be gathered to the best of man- 
kind who have gone before me. I feel impelled by 
the desire of joining the society of my two departed 
friends, your illustrious fathers, whom I reverenced 
and loved. Oh, illustrious day, when I shall go hence 
to that divine council and assembly of souls, when I 
shall escape from this crowd and rabble ; for I shall 
go not only to those illustrious men of whom I have be- 
fore spoken, but also to my Cato, than whom one more 
excellent in goodness was never born." 

^Eschilus, in his Persae, represents the soul of Darius, 
deceased, as still possessing the thoughts and feelings of 
his former life.. The dying Plotinus exclaimed " I am 



46 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

struggling to liberate the divinity within me !" Pro 
cuius, a Senator, took an oath to the Roman Senate that 
the spirit of Komulus, founder of the Roman Empire, 
appeared to him and communicated. This oath was 
considered by the Romans a binding and solemn pledge 
of truth, and was called "religion." 

Let us listen to the great Persian Shah, cotemporane- 
ous with some of the early writers of bible history, who 
cared not for immortal life and love : Cyrus, whose do- 
mestic and parental affections were as great as his genius 
and energy are famous, as the conqueror of the rich 
Croesus of Lydia, and for taking the greatest city of 
antiquity with solid walls of massive masonry a hun- 
dred feet high, and nearly as thick, and about a hundred 
miles in circumference, by turning the river Euphrates, 
which flowed through walls and city, thus effecting an 
easy and unsuspected entrance : the King of the country- 
men of Zoroaster, from whom originated the idea of a vi- 
carious atonement, and avIio first taught the existence of 
an evil spirit, Ahriman, from which the Jews, and thence 
we, have derived our present imaginary devil; which, 
however, according to Zoroaster, was to ultimately suc- 
cumb to the good spirit Ormudz. But hear Cyrus nearly 
six centuries before the advent of Christ : 

" Think not, my dearest children, that when I depart 
from you I shall be no more ; remember that my soul, 
even while I lived among you, was invisible : yet by 
my action you were sensible it existed in this body. Be- 
lieve it therefore existing still, though it still be unseen. 
How quickly would the honors of illustrious men perish 
after death, if their souls performed nothing to preserve 
their fame ! For my part, I could never think that the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 47 

soul, which, while in a mortal body lies, when departed 
from it, dies ; or that its consciousness is lost when it is 
discharged out of an unconscious habitation ; on the 
contrary, it most truly exists when it is freed from all 
corporeal alliance." 

Josephus, in his " Antiquities," records "Galphira, the 
daughter of King Archelaus, after the death of her two 
first husbands, (being married to a third, who w T as a 
brother of her first husband,) had a very odd kind of a 
dream. She fancied that she saw her first husband come 
toward her, and that she embraced him with great ten- 
derness ; when in the midst of the great pleasure which 
she expressed at the sight of him, he reproached her 
after the following: manner : ( Galnhira, thou hast made 
2;ood the old saving that women are not to be trusted. 
Was not I the husband of thy virginity ? Have I not 
children by thee ? How could thou so far forget our 
loves as to enter into other marriages — nay to marry 
my own brother ? However, for the sake of our past 
loves, I shall free thee from thy present reproach and 
make thee mine forever !' Galphira told this dream to 
several women of her acquaintance, and died soon after. 
I thought the story might not be impertinent in this 
place, wherein I speak of those lungs. Besides that, 
the example deserves to be taken notice of, as it contains 
a most certain proof of the immortality of souls and of 
Divine Providence. If any man thinks these things in- 
credible, let him enjoy his own opinion to himself, but 
let him not endeavor to disturb the belief of others, 
who, by instances of this nature, are excited to the study 
of virtue." 

Again, Abercrombie, in his " Intellectual Philoso- 



48 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

phy," which, is the most able and honest attempt to vin- 
dicate the miracles of old theology — although but inci- 
dental to his subject — that I have found. After giving 
many instances of dreams, visions, etc., from Sir Walter 
Scott and other cotemporaneous literati, the most of 
which he explains very plausibly on principles of philos- 
ophy, records the following which he acknowledges can 
not be explained, and the truth of which he vouches for : 
" Two ladies, sisters, had been for several days in at- 
tendance upon their brother, who was ill of a common 
sore throat, severe and protracted, but not considered as 
attended with danger. At the same time one of them 
had borrowed a watch from a female friend, in conse- 
quence of her own being under repair. This watch 
was one to which particular value was attached, on ac- 
count of some family associations, and some anxiety was 
expressed that it might not meet with any injury. The 
sisters were sleeping together in a room communicating 
with that of their brother, when the* elder of them 
awoke in a state of great agitation, and having roused 
the other told her she had had a frightful dream. ' I 
dreamed/ said she, ' that Mary's watch stopped ; and 
that when I told you of the circumstance, you replied 

much worse than that has happened, for 's breath 

has stopped also/ — naming their brother who was ill. 
To quiet her agitation the younger sister immediately 
got up, and found the brother sleeping quietly, and the 
watch, which had been carefully put by in a drawer, go- 
ing correctly. The following night the very same dream 
occurred, followed by similar agitation, which was again 
composed in the same manner — the brother being again 
found in a quiet sleep and the Avatch going well. On 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 49 

the following morning,, soon after the family had break- 
fasted, one of the sisters was sitting by her brother, 
while the other was writing a note in the adjoining 
room. When her note was ready for being sealed, she 
was proceeding to take out for this purpose the watch 
alluded to, which had been put by in her writing desk, 
she was astonished to find it stopped. At the same in- 
stant she heard a scream of intense distress from her 
sister in the other room. Their brother, who had still 
been considered as going on favorably, had been seized 
with a sudden fit of suffocation and had just breathed 
his last." 

Says Addison, "At the same time I think a person 
who is terrified by the imagination of ghosts and spec- 
tres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to 
the report of all historians, sacred and profane,, ancient 
and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks 
the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless. Could 
I not give myself up to the testimony of mankind, I 
should to the relations of particular persons who- are 
now living, and whom I cannot distrust in other mat- 
ters of fact. I may here add that not only the histori- 
ans, to whom we may join the poets, but likewise the 
philosphers of antiquity, have favored this opinion." 
Johnson writes " ' That the dead are seen no more/ said 
Imiac, I will not undertake to maintain against the con- 
current and unvaried testimony of all ages and all na- 
tions. There is no people, rude or learned among whom 
apparitions of the dead are not believed. This opinion, 
which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused 
could become universal only by its truth. Those who 
never heard of one another would not have agreed in a 
3 



50 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

tale which nothing but experience can make credible ; 
that it is doubted by simple cavillers can very little 
weaken the general evidence, and some who deny it by 
their tongues confess it by their fears." 

" Cornelius Agrippa," says D' Israeli, " before he 
wrote his ' Varieties of the Arts and Sciences/ intended 
to reduce into a system and method the secret of com- 
munication with spirits and demons. On good author- 
ity, that of Porphyrins, Plessus Plotinus, Jamblicus, 
and better were it necessary to allege it, he was well as- 
sured that the upper regions of the air swarmed with 
what the Greeks called demons, just as our lower atmos- 
phere is full of birds, and waters of fish, and our earth 
of insects." 

" The practice of religion is the object of life," said 
the elder Cato, after a long career of purity and phi- 
lanthropy.. " The proper study of mankind is man," 
said Pope.. " My grief is but my grandeur in disguise, 
and discontent is immortality," said Edward Young. 
" Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, both 
day and night, when we sleep and when we waive," said 
Milton. The pious Thomas Peyton, commemorating the 
translation of Enoch, in his " Glasse of Time," published 
in 1620, thus discourseth : 

" The angels "bright, and all the powers divine— 
Winged with fame to mount the highest heavens- 
Descending sweetely on thy lonely brest," etc. 

"Imagination, that strongest, most imperious of our 
faculties, whose soarings from earth to heaven may be 
reckoned among the indications of power beyond the 
grave, delights in the bold, the commanding, the superb. 
What are these but the infant attributes of the diE-ora- 
bodied spirit, the imperfect developments of a state of 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 51 

being to which time and space are nothing, when- man, 
shaking off the covering of the grave, shall be clothed 
with the might of angels, the splendid denizen of infin- 
itude and eternity ?" wrote the eloquent George Croly, 
though not canonized in biographical cyclopedias, one 
of the most brilliant minds that ever blazed or burned 
along the dark career of earth, as the extract proves, for 
a more splendid sentiment, more splendidly expressed, 
can not be found in any language. It is like an inspir- 
ation. 

Caesar's wife, Calpurnia, who lived above suspicion 
had a premonition of Caesar's fate, and exerted herself 
to dissuade him fi-om going to the Senate that fatal day. 
He attended, however, and on being attacked fought 
courageously all the conspirators until he saw the blade 
of his friend Brutus glitter against him, when his proud 
heart failed, and covering his face in his mantle, with 
the exclamation,. " And thou, too, Brutus !" the bloody 
despot yielded his body a victim to foul conspiracy, and 
fell at the feet of Pompey's statue. But after this it is 
recorded by Plutarch, his spirit appeared twice to Bru- 
tus, and spoke to him, promising to " meet him at Phil- 
lippi, sword in hand." And sure enough Brutus there 
expiated his crime on his own sword. 

Pilate's wife had a like premonition, in respect to. 
Christ's crucifixion, and warned him to beware, which 
he in some measure regarded, to the extent at least of 
" washing his hands of the affair," in his own words. 
Lord Byron was a superstitious ;" he believed in the 
ill-luck of Friday, and was seriously disconcerted if any 
thing was to be done on that frightful day of the week.. 
Yet he sometimes laughed at the idea of ghosts, Not 



52 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

long after the death of Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott 
was engaged in his study, during the darkening twilight 
of an autumnal evening, in reading a sketch of Byron's 
form and habits, his manners and opinions. On a sud- 
den he saw, as he laid down his book and passed into 
his hall, the eidolon of his departed friend before him. 
Lord Chedworth was an infidel and unbeliever in immor- 
tality. One morning at breakfast he exclaimed, " I had a 
strange visitor last night — my old friend B. came to 
me." " How ?" asked his neice • " did he come after I 
retired?" " His spirit did," said Lord Chedworth, sol- 
emnly. u O, my dear Uncle, how could the spirit of" a 
living man appear ?" said the neice, smiling. " He is 
dead beyond doubt," replied his lordship. " Listen, 
and then laugh as much as you please. I had not en- 
tered my bed-room many minutes when he stood before 
me. Like you, I could not believe but that I was look- 
ing on the living man, and so accosted him, but he, the 
spirit, answered, ' Chedworth, I died this night at eight 
o'clock. I came to tell you there is another world be- 
yond the grave; there is a righteous God that judgeth 
all.' " " Depend upon it, Uncle, it was only a dream ;" 
but while Miss Wright was yet speaking, a groom on 
horseback rode up the avenue, and immediately deliver- 
ed a letter to Lord Chedworth announcing the sudden 
death of his friend. The effect on the mind of Lord 
Chedworth was as happy as it was permanent ; all his 
doubts were at once and forever removed. 

Cardinal Wolsey and Fletcher, the Divine, had pre- 
sentiments of their death. Lord Lyttleton, famous in 
law, was approached by the deceased mother of a young 
lady whom he had injured, and who tauntingly told 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIPE. 53 

him the very day and hour of his death, which literally 
occurred. And he, in turn, appeared immediately after 
his death to his friend Andrews. Jeanne Dare, com- 
monly called Joan of Arc, at thirteen years of age, had 
visions and was informed of her mission for the deliv- 
erance of France, which was fully and literally accom- 
plished, according to the spiritual presages of her early 
life ; and when she appeared at the head of the troops, 
her beautiful hair hanging in ringlets over her should- 
ers and streaming in the wind, her eyes flashing the radi- 
ance of a high inspiration, and her face beaming with the 
benignity of her heavenly mission, she seemed an incar- 
nated angel on earth, and popular enthusiasm knew no 
bounds. Subsequently she was tried and condemned on 
the charge of sorcery, by the ecclesiastical party under the 
bishop of Beauvais. Bound in iron chains and condemned 
to death, this fair girl and heavenly heroine, baffled the 
crowd of subtle theologians, who had constituted them- 
selves the cruel inquisition with prepared questions to 
entrap her. She declared her mission was from God, 
communicated by celestial agents, who appeared richly 
clothed and always accompanied with a brilliant light. 
To the question how they could speak, being pure spirits 
without members, she answered she knew not : she only 
knew their voices were sweet, their language beautiful 
and their counsel holy. It was again objected that they 
were appearances without reality. " Whether they be 
apparent or real, I have proved them, and I would 
rather lose my head than deny their being." After ful- 
filling all her preternatural inspirations and aspirations, 
from her thirteenth year of age, this virgin martyr of 
French liberty and angelic development of heavenly 



54 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

truth, was in her twenty-first year burnt alive by the 
church ! 

Damaseius, a stoic philosopher of Syria, who flour- 
ished in the time of Justinian, expressly says " that in 
a battle fought near Rome with the Scythians, com- 
manded by Attilla, in the time of Valentinian, who suc- 
ceeded Honorius (in the year 42o) the slaughter on 
both sides was so great, that none on either side 
escaped, except the generals and a few of their attend- 
ants. And, which is very strange, when the bodies 
were fallen, the souls stood upright and continued 
fighting three whole days and nights, nothing inferior 
to living men, either for the activity of their hands or 
the fierceness of their minds — they w^ere both seen and 
heard fighting together and clashing with their armor." 
This, from a stoic philosopher, is singular, and would 
appear an apodictical fiction or exaggeration, though, 
according to the philosophy of nature, it, or at least its 
representation, is not absolutely impossible, for, like 
some stories in scripture, it may have been a psycho- 
metric, psychologic, or some sort of electric or spectral 
illusion ; or the result of mental malady, or cerebral 
disorder ; or a deliberately concocted fable and inten- 
tional falsehood ; yet I do not believe the story because 
it has no parallel in all the authenticated revelations of 
the past and present. 

But in all these records of visions, inspirations and 
presentiments, as a just offset, we should remember 
that distance lends exaggeration, if not enchantment, to 
the view ; and that while many have been realized and 
fulfilled, many more doubtless have failed and proven 
fictitious and fallacious. 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 55 

John Kepler, so little popularly known, who dis- 
covered the motion of the sun, the weight of the atmos- 
phere, the elliptical orbits of the planets, and the great 
law that "the squares of the periodic times of the planets 
are to each other as the cubes of their mean distances 
from the sun/' and other great principles in the philos- 
ophy of astronomy, and a most dutiful and devoted 
son, whose care, kindness and affection for his mother, 
who had causelessly contemned him and bestowed her 
favors on other sons, who afterwards neglected her in 
her old age, extorted the following words from her 
dying lips : " I wish that all mothers would take 
warning by my case and never show any preference to 
one child over another until they see good reason to do 
so. Above ail, none should be harsh, but kind to the 
one that's anxious for knowledge." He thus speaks in 
his epitaph, written by himself: " I have measured the 
heavens; I now measure the shades of the earth. The 
intellect is celestial; here only the shadow of the body 
reposes." This great and good man had to prosecute 
his studies under the great incubus of extreme indi- 
gence, and his only instrument with which he meas- 
ured the heavens, was constructed of three sticks of 
wood formed into a triangle and graduated, with goose 
quills for sights. And, like Milton, Maihtt, Bulwer, 
Lardner, and many of the finest intellects of the world, 
he was unfortunate in his matrimonial selection. What 
a clog, what a curse for such a man, measuring the 
machinery of the universe, or studying the springs of 
human hope and its deep arcana, soaring for the sub- 
lime and towering to the true, to be tied to a termagant 
whose cross, contracted, distorted, capricious ken never 



56 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

readied beyond her poultry yard or goose-pond, whose 
viraginity is her religion, who quarrels at his every gen- 
erous and noble deed, contemns his honorable impulses 
and efforts, abuses his lofty aspirations, sneers at his 
sensitiveness, and reviles his refinement. Thus the 
contumacious and contumelious wife (for genius can't 
brook contumely) and undutiful and ungrateful chil- 
dren, (for this gratitude is a motive for its efforts,) as in 
the case of Milton, treat him whose hand holds their 
heads above the wave, and whose efforts would weave 
a wreathe around their names as fadeless as the flowers 
of his congenial paradise. Why is it that men of 
genius are nearly always thus unhappy in their con- 
jugal connections ? It is a well known truth and fact, 
and therefore must have a reason and a philosophy. 
Indulge a brief answer to this question, as it involves 
one of the most important relations of life. Genius is 
original, superb, bold, defiant, and disdains to follow 
the worn-out paths of others, whether it be or not a 
disease of the nerves, as declared by a learned doctor, 
hence the comparatively ignorant wife, and her more 
ignorant friends, and simple, conceited neighbors, ever 
eager to officiate, call this eccentricity, obduracy, imbe- 
cility. 

" The moles and bats in fall assembly find, 
On special search the keen-eyed eagle blind. ■' 1 

Genius"also has its puerilities, and is subject to the 
greatest perturbations, like the streaming meteor, and 
these, its mere aberrations, are taken by the ignorant 
for its normal orbit and natural status. For instance, 
Sir Isaac Newton, I think it was, or some other great 
mind, on having his new barn completed, required the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 57 

workman to cut a hole in the door for cats to enter to 
drive off the rats. After the hole was made for the 
cat, which required but a few moments, he asked his 
workman also to cut some smaller ones for the kittens, 
as he wished them to multiply. " But," said the work- 
man, "if a grown cat go through that hole so can the 
little kitttens." "Sure enough," rejoined the genius. 
There are many such ludicrous instances of absence of 
mind — for they are nothing else — recorded of great 
men, which silly people regard as the test of mentality. 
The great mind, after its herculean efforts on great sub- 
jects, becomes on these small trivialities quiescent, and 
is then comparatively asleep; and such active minds 
require more sleep than sluggish ones. Napoleon fre- 
quently slept on the field of battle, on the issue of 
which the fate of Empires trembled. It is the moral 
d uty of genius to pity the weak and self-conceited sim- 
pleton ; and some do, occasionally, but not invariably, 
for genius is generally unstable and erratic like the 
vivid lightning's gleam. There are many who attain 
renown through adventitious fortune ; but few men of 
genius are known to the world compared to the many 
unknown. 

" Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its fragrance on the desert air," 

These lines, though trite, are so truthful and beau- 
tiful, so apposite and opportune, that I could not resist 
their recitation. As there are vain men who would 
feign sleep a la " Old Nap.," as he was called, to affect 
his genius, so I am aware he who quotes these familiar 
lines would be liable to the charge of self-application, 
3* 



58 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

himself the buried gem and neglected flower; and be- 
fore an auditory to whom I am not known, I should 
not thus venture to repeat them in this connection. 
But my reputation is in Texas, and with the Texans, 
and their opinions of myself and public efforts, as ex- 
pressed through their leading journals, amply vindicate 
me from this charge, and fully gratify my highest aspi- 
rations in this regard ; and here I'm content to leave it. 
Again : the man of genius and culture is capable of 
conceiving and is hence apt to fix a .standard so high of 
female loveliness, that few women can " fill the bill," 
to use a quaint phrase; hence his frequent disappoint- 
ments. And again, genius is high-spirited, full of 
passion, impatient of restraint, excitable and irritable, 
(which irritability is confounded by the vixen with her 
own irascibility) ; and therefore requires a wife of more 
than ordinary gentleness, patience and amiability. But 
genius, superb in its ideal, will have none other than a 
woman of superb beauty; and nature never lavishes all 
her gifts in one individual. I opine it would be as 
hard to find a beautiful woman who is amiable, as it is 
to find a great man who is pretty. And yet further, 
may it not sometimes happen that an invidious wife, 
and her still more invidious friends, seek to drag the 
husband from his towering altitude down to their own 
level, whom they can never otherwise hope to equal ? 
To return : Goethe says, " I could in no wise dispense 
with the happiness of believing in our future existence, 
and could say with Lorenzo De Medici, that those are 
dead for this life even who have no hope of hereafter." 
We might quote from Swedenborg, the illuminated 
seer of Germany, and the philosophic and scientific 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 59 

Christian of the eighteenth century, who lived and 
moved in mind among the angels, and who predicted 
correctly the day and hour of his death ; from Black- 
stone, the great legal philosopher of England, and his 
annotator, Chitty; from the epic Iliad of Homer, and 
the anterior Yalmika, the Homer of Hindoostan; the 
rural Bucolics of Virgil ; the plaintive pleas of Ossian, 
who sang " spirits ride on beams of fire -" the stately 
tones of Shelley ; the original Chaucer ; the dramatic 
life pictures of Shakespeare — all the inspired spirits of 
song along the stream of time hymn the hopes of the 
human heart to be beyond the dim horizon that bounds 
our visual organs. And the Wesleys, founders of 
modern Methodism, (in contradistinction to the Meth- 
odism, Popish, of France, several centuries previous,) 
with their whole families, witnessed in their houses for 
a long time strange and marvelous manifestations of 
spirit power, but, like all others, while fully believing, 
did not understand them or their mighty significance. 
And Adam Clark, their biographer, familiar with many 
languages, and author of popular and voluminous com- 
mentaries on the bible, acknowledged their superhuman 
and ultramundane oiigin. Wordsworth believed that 
prophets lived in all ages ; Coleridge claimed supernal 
inspiration ; and Raphael professed to derive the ideal 
of his splendid paragon of beauty from his immortal- 
ized mother. 

We might go on and quote from Sir Matthew Hale, 
one of the founders of English jurisprudence, and St. 
Augustine, one of the fathers of the church, and a 
great many others of the most noted characters that 
illume the pages of the past, from the earliest to the 



60 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

latest ages. But for our limited time these must suffice 
to establish the fact that from the earliest ages to the 
present propitious period, mankind have cherished a 
vague belief in their immortality and ministering 
angels in the form of their friends who formerly lived 
among them in the flesh. 

But the most illustrious of all those illuminated and 
some spiritually inspired characters is Jesus Christ. 

I ask the Christian particularly to remark his 
words : 

" Behold the kingdom of God is within you — ask 
and it shall be given you — seek and you shall find ; 
knock and it shall be opened unto you — and I, if I be 
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me — I 
have yet many things to say unto you. but you cannot 
bear them now — howbeit when he the spirit of truth 
shall come, he will guide you unto all truth — and he 
will show you things to come — for it is not ye that 
speak, but the spirit of your Father which speaketh in 
you — notwithstanding in this rejoice not that the spirits 
are subject to you — he that bclieveth in me," that is as 
I understand it, in my life and philosophy, " the works 
that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these 
.shall he do." "But though he had done so many 
miracles before them, yet they believed not on him." 
Hence he declared to his disciples with whom he had 
been so long familiar, that " they did not understand 
him, and could not until the spirit of truth should 
come to lead them into the truth of what he had 
taught.'' It is also recorded in the new Testament, 
41 and on the day of Pentacost suddenly there came a 
.sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind, 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 61 

and it filled all the house where the apostles were sit- 
ting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues 
like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them : and they 
were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak 
with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance — 
for the promise is unto you and your children, and to 
all that are afar off/' As prophesied of old, " I will 
pour of my spirit upon all flesh." Yie must not omit 
St. Paul, who was a man of recondite and profound 
erudition, and in spiritual endowments was perhaps 
second only to Jesus. You recollect his supernatural, 
no— -there is no such thing as supernatural — his pre- 
ternatural conversion. He says: "The manifestation 
of the spirit is given to every man to profit. For as 
many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons 
of God. For I reckon that the suffering of this pre- 
sent time is not worthy to be compared with the glory 
which shall, be revealed in us. Likewise the spirit also 
helpcth our infirmities. For we know not what we 
should pray for. Know ye not that ye are the temple 
of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you ? 
Follow after charity and desire spiritual gifts. For ye 
may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and be 
comforted. It [man] is sown a natural body; it is 
raised a spiritual body. For there is a spiritual body, 
and there is a natural body. I knew a man, whether 
in the body or out of the body I can not tell, how that 
he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable 
words which it is not lawful for a man to utter. If we 
live in the spirit let us walk in the spirit. Quench not 
the spirit. Despise not prophesying. Prove all things 
— hold fast that which is good." Good advice truly. 



62 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 

He also speaks of the " discerning of spirits," " gift of 
tongues/' " gift of healing," etc. 

Thus we have given the prevailing opinion and cher- 
ished hopes of mankind in every variety and without 
regard to chronologic order, extending over a period of 
5865 years, (including the Mosaic record,) comprising 
billions of men, down to the present auspicious time. 

But to this general and popular sentiment of the 
human family, which we trace through all the ages, 
there are many and powerful exceptions. Nationally 
the Huns, a numerous and warlike nation, who, under 
Attila and Alaric overran southern Europe, according 
to some historians rejected all religions, possessing and 
professing none. Individually Julius Csesar, as an 
orator and a writer, statesman and warrior, one of the 
most famous of mankind, in a celebrated oration in the 
Roman Senate, on the punishment of Lentulus and other 
Catalinian conspirators, advocated incarceration for life 
on the ground that death is no punishment, but rather 
a cessation from toil and sorrow, as well as of joy. Na- 
poleon Bonaparte, equally renowned in both civil and 
military annals, was so heartily disgusted with the sim- 
ulations of the clergy, and the hypocrisy of all reli- 
gions, that he believed none. On his narrow escape 
from t'hc inflowing tide of the Red sea, on the spot 
where Pharaoh perished, he exclaimed, "If I had 
perished here like Pharaoh, what a text it would have 
furnished the preachers of all Christendom." He never 
uttered a greater truth. It would have been seized 
upon and heralded from the pulpit as a grand provi- 
dential speciality visited upon him for his manifold sins 
and transgressions, and iniquities, and ungodliness, and 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 63 

special presumptuousness, for getting himself out safe 
from the same sea whose enraged waters had over- 
whelmed Pharaoh and his heathen host, by the special 
mandate of the Almighty. I sometimes more than 
half agree with Napoleon and Caesar, to the extent at 
least that a large portion of the human family are not 
worthy of another and higher life, and indeed do not 
desire it. And Polibius, Pausanius, Sinionides, 
liobbes, Hume, Gibbons, Bolinghrooke, Lord Chat- 
ham, Byron, Burke, Voltaire, Paine, Franklin, Jeffer- 
son, and others of great intellect, were infidels, or 
skeptics, but whether on the divine origin of the Tal- 
mud, or Targum, or Bible, or Koran, or Veda, or 
Edda, or Sastra, or Geeta, or on the immortality of the 
soul, I do not know, not having studied nor even read 
them. Indeed, I never read an infidel author in my 
life, my information on this subject being derived from 
religious and miscellaneous reading of late scientific 
works. And in the living age I am personally 
acquainted with at least one master mind, a distin- 
guished gentleman now present, who has studied both 
physical and psychical science, particularly as involved in 
medicine, chemistry and physiology, who has no idea 
and no hope of another life bej^ond the scenes of this 
fitful, fevered drama — regarding man as only a high 
order of animal with the highest cerebral development. 
In the liberal laws of this enlightened commonwealth 
of Texas — and there is more intelligence among the 
masses than in any other State — a man's religion is not 
the test of eligibility to office, oath or emolument; 
and if it were, this gentleman would scorn concealment 



64 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

under the cloak of hypocrisy. He charges me with 
superstition. According to Webster and Worcester, 
superstition means false religion, weak credulity. I 
have shown that mankind in all ages, the most lite- 
rate and illiterate, have believed in a future life and 
spiritual or angelic intercourse of exearnated with incar- 
nated men, amounting to an almost universal instinct. 
Now this belief must be founded in actual fact, or the 
result of instinct. If the former, the fact is estab- 
lished; if the latter, we must believe it will be realized 
hereafter as a glorious truth, for all instincts of all ani- 
mals are gratified, or have the means of gratification. 
Thus man's superstition furnishes an argument for 
future life. With the sceptic it is at least consistent to 
entertain these views of spiritualism and all the reli- 
gious isms; but with religionists of any class to reject 
spiritualism or supermundane manifestations of exear- 
nated men in the form of angels, when all their reli- 
gions and bibles are predicated upon this principle, and 
the Christian pre-eminently so, as it contains nearly 
two hundred such passages or references, it proves them, 
to use the mildest terms, to be either ignorant or 
insincere. It may be urged that my peculiar tempera- 
ment or constitution of mind causes my incredulity of 
the fashionable orthodoxy. If so, I may reply that the 
constitution of the believer's mind is the cause of his 
credulity. Again, it may be said my mental peculiarity 
is the cause of my admiring and embracing the spiritual 
philosophy, to which I might retort the mental pecu- 
liarity of others prevents them from appreciating and 
embracing this philosophy; that they and mankind 
generally are so constituted or educated as to turn from 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 65 

new lights, and reject improvements as innovations — 
creatures of education who can not sunder the shackles 
of early instillations. There are few, indeed, who can 
do this. Around men's hearts is a mail of prejudice 
and partiality, of religion and bigotry, that grows with 
their growth, which is as impervious to light as, and which 
they are generally no more able to break than, the tor- 
toise can break its shell. It is not so much with them 
the God of truth, the God of nature, the God of their 
destiny, as the God of their fathers. Few can rend the 
veil and view the truth of God and God of truth. 
Well did Jesus say " few there be that find him.' 7 

Now, before we concern ourselves about our condition 
hereafter, or the conditions of that country, or in fami- 
liar figure the state of the road on the other side of 
Jordon, we should first find out whether there is any 
hereafter, any country, or any road at all beyond the 
terrene banks of this rugged shore. 

Then let us reason this mighty question of human 
immortality a little for ourselves. 

We can neither date our beginning nor our ending — 
not in a collective or generic sense — but individually and 
personally. Where and when did we become men? 
when and where did our individuality, our life if you 
please, commence? We can trace back, step by step, 
process after process, but no one point more prominent 
than others, until we arrive at the original elements of 
earth from which we have been elaborated. Here some- 
where is the beginning of our genetic personal history, 
physically. Our spirituality, our mentality, our real 
conscious self, is afterwards superinduced as the grand 
result for which the physical casket is the fitting recep- 



6Q PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

tide and necessary vehicle or process for the spiritual 
elaboration, and gradually infused by those higher, 
more refined and supernal elements -surrounding the 
atmosphere, and permeating the planets and planetary 
spaces of the universe. We can trace the gradual 
development of our spiritual self back to somewhere in 
childhood, ultimately, or rather primarily, to the super- 
ethereal elements ; but who can date its exact begin- 
ning ? The spirit, like the body, is of gradual growth 
and development; but we cannot date their precise 
begin ing point. Here the analogy ends; for the body, 
after its maturity, fulfills its mission and decays ; but 
the spirit continues to progress, to expand, to develope 
new capacities, new expansions, and new grandeurs, 
independent of the decaying body, unless suffering from 
essential organic lesion, as I shall presently show. 
This leads us to immortality, which we now investi- 
gate ; and it is not more wonderful or incredible for an 
immortal and angelic being to spring from the highest 
types of man, than for those higher types of conscious 
life to spring from the inert elements of the unconscious 
rocks; but we know this latter to be a fact, hence we 
may believe the former to be a truth. 

Wisdom to devise, power to execute, and will to 
exert them, are the essential attributes of a creator. 
Now man, and man alone, of all beings within the 
range of our knoAvledge, possesses these attributes. 
True, the brute, by instinct, constructs its bed, builds 
its nest, or forms its lair; but in them all we find 
nothing new, no original thought, or wisdom, or pro- 
gressive improvement, or mental locomotion, or ener- 
getic, independent power of creation. In man we find 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 67 

all these prominently displayed. As striking instances 
behold the majestic steamboat and locomotive careering 
o'er the ocean or crossing the continent. And, as a 
more familiar and practical illustration, look at his 
garments before the clays of Watt, and Savory of the 
steam engine, Arkwright and Cartwright of the spin- 
ning and weaving machine, and Howe, Moore, and 
others, of the sewing machine, when ten men, ten days 
with hard toil, would make about ten garments, rough, 
uncouth and uncomfortable. Now, by these, his crea- 
tive energies, ten men in ten days, with light labor, can 
make near a thousand garments, beautiful, comfortable 
and durable. We know these things do not come by 
chance ; that we create or make them before they exist, or 
can possibly Imve an existence. The aquatic indwellers of 
the sea, if they had reasoning powers, could not attri- 
bute the great steamship, with all intricate, harmonious 
and well --adjusted parts, to mere chance or accident; 
but must know that it is the work, the creation of some 
superior being, whom, however, they cannot find nor 
see. Now, if these little imperfect and perishable crea- 
tions of the ephemeral pigmy, man, must be created before 
they can have an existance, how can this mighty and 
magnificent nature, from the plumed butterfly to the 
wonderful worlds of light rolling around us, have its 
grand and glorious existence without a creator commen- 
surate in wisdom and power, magnificence and glory? 
whom, nevertheless, we may not find nor see. It is 
evident then there must be a creator — God. "I am, 
O God ! and surely Thou must be ! " says the great 
Russian poet. And man, inheriting the original crea- 
tive energies of the Father, must be the child of God, 



68 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 

assimulated to him in mental development, but not 
perfection. And can it be that his children, so assimu- 
lated to him in these splendid faculties, were created 
but to be washed away with the current of time, and 
after a few fleeting years, to die out with death for- 
ever? Man being the only mundane being in posses- 
sion of the splendid powers of original mental locomo- 
tion, which is a great distinguishing feature between 
him and the brute, that has no more original mental 
locomoticn than the flower which instinctively opens 
its capsular petals to catch- the night dew or passing 
shower, and then closes in the precious water drops for 
the approaching drought ; and endowed with the God- 
like faculties of wisdom to devise, power to execute and 
will to exert them, must be in the image and reflects 
the attributes of his Maker — the chosen child of his 
Father, inheriting his nature. And if he inherit the 
nature of his God he cannot die unless God die; and 
God cannot die unless the universe die; but we know 
the universe of matter to be imperishable; therefore 
God cannot die, and man, inheriting his nature, is im- 
mortal. 

Again, it appears evident that this terrestrial nature 
was created for man. All the zones of earth and king- 
doms of organic life, as well as all inorganic matter, are 
adapted to him and to him alone. All this nature, in 
all its appointments, ministers unto him, and yields its 
treasures to his talismanic touch. Before his onward 
march and at his authoritative mandate oceans yield 
their treasures, and mountains melt away ; and all earth 
with calm quiescence acknowledges his sway. Surely 
the world is made for man; he is, under God, its lordly 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 69 

master. The bowels of the earth yield their iron 
chains, with which we bind the elements of fire and 
water, and make them the obedient servants of our 
will. In a car of our own construction we can sit at 
ease, and, by kindling a few bushels of coal, circumnav- 
igate our world of twenty-five thousand miles circum- 
ference in less than forty days. We throw the plummet 
of our reason athwart the internal fiery ocean of this 
shell-crusted globe, and note the heaving, heated bil- 
lows of its liquid fire. We track the earthquake's 
giant tread and analy ze the palpitations of its mighty 
heart. Man is the master of his situation in all but 
the great law of mutation, which is another name of 
progression, from which he is not exempt, and of which 
he forms the principal part: objectively and subjec- 
tively he is the very spirit of progression. And hope 
springs exclusive in the- human breast, and would fain 
have this earth a primitive garden in which to culti- 
vate and prepare his faculties for a nobler theatre — a 
chrysalis state to develop the bud of immortal being ere 
his pinions plume for celestial flight. Why this con- 
stant living in the future, and for the future? Never 
in the present; nor for the present. 

The brute, when its animal demands of hunger and 
thirst are satisfied, lies down contented and happy ; it 
has no other desires — no unsatisfied aspirations. Is it th us 
with man? Not so. lie has, after all his mere animal 
appetencies are satiated to the full, other desires that 
this initial earth plane cannot satisfy. Grant, as a 
postulate, that a creator cannot create a creature better 
than the creator, and I will prove conclusively my im- 
mortality,. I assert for myself that I would not, would 



70 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

never create any thing with desires to be ruthlessly 
denied, disappointed and frustrated. But God has 
created me with this intense desire of immortal love • 
now, therefore, He must endue me with this immortality, 
or else I, the creature am better than God the creator, 
which was postulated as impossible. 

Again, God must have had a motive in the creation 
of man, and this motive must be either to please him- 
self the creator, or to please man the creature. If the 
former, to please himself, he has failed in the object, if 
man consists alone in the animal and perishes with it; 
for where is the pleasure to make a creature with yearn- 
ing desires just to perish without the gratification of 
those desires, unless he delight in the infliction of suf- 
fering upon his children, for this would be the merest 
mockery and the direst cruelty. Better have limited 
his creation to the brute which is endowed with no 
desires but those that are gratified. This would be 
pleasure. But if the latter, that is pleasure to man, 
he has here failed of his object too; for man can have 
no pleasure in a life of earnest desires never to be gra- 
tified, if so be that he dies with his body. He can 
have no pleasure without a pang, when he knows this 
very pleasure, no matter how exstatic, is to have an 
end, no matter how distant. 

" A perpetuity of bliss alone is bliss." Therefore, 
in either case, he must endow man with immortality to 
effect his object in his creation, whether that be to 
please the creator or creature. This is a strong infer- 
ential argument apart from demonstrative science. Man 
would become the most miserable, indeed the only mis- 
erable of all animated nature, inasmuch as he is the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 71 

only species endowed with desires never to be gratified, 
if lie perish like all the balance of the animal creation. 
But, as far as our animal observation extends, every- 
thing dies. We see men die continually like the brute 
creation, and never see more of them ; We witness death 
everywhere in our world, but never witness any resur- 
rection. According to this mere animal observation, 
men come into the world like brutes and go out like 
brutes, which is the end of them — utter annihilation. 
But man is capable of infinite expansion and exaltation, 
and this is proof that he is enabled to look beyond and 
above this mere experience or observation of his animal 
part, which is but his earthly organ, his temporal sen- 
sorium. Through the lights of science that he himself 
hath kindled, he sees that nothing is annihilated; that 
while change, mutation is nature's organic lavv r , death 
or annihilation is unknown in her whole organism. 
Therefore man's body, with that of the brute^ expires 
but to undergo some great change in the economy of 
nature, their constituent parts and original elements 
not to be destroyed, but to continue through their 
transmutation the grand omniferous design of nature's 
God. 

But what becomes of man's immortal part — his 
mind or spirit? If his mere animal body is not extin- 
guished, but merely changed its constitution and posi- 
tion in the grand process of nature, a fortiori we may 
believe, nay must conclude, that his spiritual part, that 
splendid emanation of the Deity, is not extinguished, 
nor dies, but is changed, transformed, metamorphosed 
in position, prospect and perfection. And the great 
improvement and progress while in this span of time 



72 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

fully indicate the improvement and progress after this 
earthly elimination, this change of apparent death. If 
any part of nature perished or is annihilated, it might 
be allowable, as we have already shown, to suppose the 
soul may perish. But no part, parcel, or innnitessimal 
particle of nature is really destroyed. It may be 
changed, transformed, in fact is continually undergo- 
ing change and transformation in the elementary con- 
ditions, but absolute indestructibility is a fundamental 
law. Then can it be believed that the most important, 
masterly and God-like work, the mind of man for 
whom this nature was made, will be destroyed ? The 
life of the mind is a positive fact ; the onus probandi is 
upon him who asserts its death. But it may be said 
the proof of the life of the mind is in its living actions 
which we witness ; ergo the proof of its death is in the 
fact that we no more witness these living actions. 
Hence the burden of proof is again on us affirming the 
life of the mind by these continued living actions. 
This we cannot do, simply because an impossibility, 
except through the new philosophy evolved by modern 
science. Nevertheless we infer a strong verisimilitude 
in accordance with the known laws of nature, that the 
spirit, which is an actuality the man, soon as eliminated 
from material organism, mounts by the law of attrac- 
tion to its great, original, homogeneous source. From 
the general analogies of nature and our best intellec- 
tions, we must indulge and cherish the hope of immor- 
tality for our loves, else whence these aspirations of the 
soul, these longings after glory? 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 73 

V When 'reft of all you widowed sire appears 
A lonely hermit in the vale of years ; 
Say, can the world one joyous thought "bestow 
To friendship weeping at the couch of woe? 
No ! hut a brighter soothes the last adieu,— 
Souls of impassioned mould she speaks to you ! 
Weep not she says at nature's transient pain, 
Congenial spirits part to meet again.'' 1 

4i If in that frame no deathless spirit dwell, 
If that faint murmur be the last farewell, 
If fate unite the faithful but to part, 
Why is their memory sacred to the heart?' 1 

" To have been and not to be is less than unborn,'* 

Then man must be immortal or God cannot be good, 
Inasmuch as goodness would never create and implant 
feappy affections, cherished feelings of friendship, 
angelic love, and an irrepressible desire to live on with 
loved friends to demonstrate goodness, and then tear 
all these cherished ligaments asunder and lacerate the 
very heart of love with the relentless destiny of certain 
separation. But the very implantation of these holy, 
happy and hallowed affections proves goodness, unless 
we can imagine cruelty to be a predominating attribute 
to his character. Therefore, man is immortal, and by 
proper effort at a proper development, may attain the 
abodes of bliss and love as the heritage of his hopes, 

■"It must be so, Plato, thou reasonest well !— 
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
This longing after immortality? 
Or whence this sacred dread and inward horror 
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 
Back on herself and startles at destruction? 

'Tia the Divinity that stirs within ns; 

'Tis Heaven itseif that points an hereafter 

And intimates an eternity to man,— — 

— shall fade away, the sun himself 

•Grow dim with, age, and nature Bird? in years: 

But thou ahall flourish In immortal youth 

Unhufl amidst the war of elements, 

The -. . , u of matter srid the eragb of world," 

4 



74 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

But here is the problem : Is the thinking, spiritual 
part of man a distinct independent entity, or is it the 
result of his material organization generated by the 
brain as a voltaic battery generates electricity, or 
secreted as the stomach secretes the gastric juice, or as 
the liver secretes the bile. This is the great question 
of the age, and is worthy, as it commands the mightiest 
efforts of human science. Of course if it be a separate 
existence, the dissolution of the body can not affect it, 
only to dislodge it, to change its place or position ; but 
if it be an inseparable result of the physical functions, 
of course it must cease upon the cessation of those 
functions, and expire with corporeal dissolution. ~Now 
the cerebellum is the seat or centre of physical vi- 
tality, and the cerebrum the seat of the mind. The 
"brutes have large back brain, but no front brain ; they 
have the body but not the spirit. The functions of 
the cerebellum are involuntary, of the cerebrum vol- 
untary. 

It should appear then from experiment that v/hen 
ithe cerebellum is wounded the bodily functions cease, 
which is the fact, but what effect it has on the spirit of 
fcourse we can not know, while, on the other hand, 
when the cerebrum is wounded the mind is affected, 
but the bodily functions not necessarily so. Again, 
the whole body may be sick and the spirit unimpaired, 
and vice versa, the mind may be deranged and the 
bady unimpaired. If the spirit be a mere effect or 
result generated by the brain, how can it be sound 
while the brain is diseased? How can the effect be 
*ound when the cause is unsound? I grant that the 
imind is frequently deranged in its actions when the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 75 

brain is diseased; but may not this result from, not the 
mind being necessarily diseased itself in a dependent 
connection with the brain as part of itself, but, the 
brain being merely its vehicle or agent through which 
it acts, and this vehicle being diseased its actions be- 
come deranged. This may also account for the great 
physical exhaustion consequent upon intense mental 
action. The greatest prostration I ever experienced 
was from mental effort. While the average human 
brain is but one-fortieth of the body in weight, it 
receives one-sixth of the blood, thus proving the 
mighty action of the mind upon this organ, and the 
exhaustion of the physical system from this action when 
intense and continued — on the same principle and 
philosophy precisely of the exhaustion of a medium 
after long continued spirit influence. This latter fact 
is proof of my philosophy of the former. And fur- 
ther, as the mind is the centre of sensation, that is, if a 
wound be inflicted on any part of the system, say the 
hand, the pain appears to be there in the hand ; but it 
is not ; you sever the nerve connecting the hand with 
the brain or mind, and the wound will not be felt at 
all. Then the brain should be a most sensitive organ, 
but it is not such. You may wound and even take 
out a portion of the cerebrum without pain, and with- 
out affecting the mind. Thus it appears the mind is 
the source of sensation, and independent of the brain. 
But the medulla ablongata, which is a small brain at 
the base of the cranium, connecting with the top of 
the spinal column, resembling the arbor vita?, and so 
called, and the mediate seat where all the nerves collect 
and concentre and cross to the opposite hemispheres of 



76 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

the upper brain, — is so extremely sensitive that the 
slightest puncture will produce convulsions. I have a 
nearly constant and sometimes a severe pain on the left 
of the spinal column in the dorsal nerve, and in the 
right temple of the forehead; this decussation of the 
nerves in the medulla, I suppose, accounts for the con- 
nection. This medulla, which means the pith and quin- 
tessence of marrow, seems to be the very pith and quin- 
tessence of the whole brain, and is thought by Dr. 
Dodds to be the central seat of the mind. Of course, 
as a learned physician and physiologist, he must mean 
the animal mind, if you will allow such an expression, 
or animal instincts, if you prefer it : for the scat of 
man's mind or spirit is the cerebrum, which is a super- 
added differentiation or development above all other 
animals inhabiting this planet, and is alone adapted to 
the operations of mind or spirit as extraneous to itself, 
just as the optic apparatus or visual organs are adapted 
to light as extraneous to them. It is remarkable 
that when cut in any direction, at least that portion in 
the contiguous cerebellum, it presents the appearance 
of the abor vitas, the tree of life ; and if man is the 
only animal that has this tree of life in its cerebral 
structure, (having no work or access to an}- on compar- 
ative anatomy, I can not say,) it is singular and signifi- 
cant.* And yet further : Geology teaches, according 
to Cuvier's classification, the first created species of ani- 
mated nature on our globe were the fishes ; next the 
reptiles; next the birds: next the mammalia; each 



"Later investigation prove? that man is not the only creature with the 
Thedulla oblengata, that this is only an essential organ of the animal organ- 
ism: and thafthe frontal and coronal portion of the encephalon is the spo* 
Shat spirituality stoops to touch with loftiest thought and immortal love. 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 77 

species having their brain peculiar to themselves, hut 
rising higher toward perfection in each successive de- 
velopment during those long and successive epochs of 
creation. Nov/, we learn from embryology, as first 
traced by Tiedeman, that in the successive develop- 
ments of the foetal brain, it is first in the form of that 
of the fish ; then of the reptile ; then of the bird ; then 
of the mammal ; and last, when fully developed, it as- 
sumes the form of the human brain. Nor does this 
warrant the Lamarckian theory, which would make us 
all the great grand-children of the monkey. It shows 
conclusively, first, that man is the grand aggregate and 
ultimate of the universe below him, and the end and 
aim of this mundane creation ; and second, that his 
high development of brain is intended for another pur- 
pose above and beyond all others below him, to be re- 
ceptive of a higher endowment of which they are not 
capable. And what this purpose unless it be a spirit- 
ual life '? and what the purpose of spiritual life without 
immortality? But the relative complexity of the cere- 
bral convolutions in the higher types of man over the 
Aryan race and all the anthropoid animals, argues, if 
it does not prove, that mind is generated by this cere- 
bral apparatus as common electricity is generated by a 
galvanic battery ; and that the power of the mind is 
in direct ratio with these convolutions, which are esti- 
mated to present a superficies in the higher types of 
near TOO square inches; and also in connection and 
ratio with the character of the cineritious and vesicu- 
lar matter. And though science teaches that nothing 
of ourselves remain permanent but our consciousness, 
or self-knowledge of existence, our hsecceity, yet when 



78 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

we consider old age — when the brain has lost its power 
the mind ceases — the very existence of the man is un- 
known to himself. And when we further consider that 
in cases of cerebral injury of long standing, the mind 
on its recovery begins again and is cognizant only 
where it was made to leave off by the cerebral injury. 
As example, a British captain, while giving orders on 
the quarter-deck of his ship, at the battle of the Nile, 
was struck on the head by a shot and immediately be- 
came senseless. He was taken home and removed to 
Greenwich Hospital, where for fifteen months he 
evinced no sign of intelligence. He was then tre- 
phined, and immediately upon the operation being per- 
formed consciousness returned, and he instantly began 
busying himself to see the orders carried out that he 
had given during the battle fifteen months previously. 
The clock-work of the brain, unaware that it had 
stopped — so was the mind unaware — upon being set 
going again pointed to the exact minute at which it 
had left off. I say, when we consider cases like this, 
it seems almost positive that the mind or spirit is de- 
pendent on and generated by the brain ; else why did 
the mind not have cognition of events transpiring dur- 
ing the brain's inanition ? Or, why does the old man 
cease to be? Blumenbach, Sir Ashley Cooper, and 
others, have seen the human brain, when exposed, ex- 
hibit motion when the mind was in action, violent mo- 
tion when the mind was excited, and perfect. rest when 
the mind was quiescent : showing the mind to be the 
result of or dependent on the action of the brain. 
These portentous and gloomy facts of physiologi- 
cal science would prove the ruin of our hopes and 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 79 

immortal aspirations, were it not for the grand de- 
velopments of spiritual science. But this superior 
brain is the seat of consciousness of which all the lower 
brains are devoid. There is, there can be, no such 
thing as life without consciousness. As an old philos- 
opher remarked that "all philosophy begins in the cer- 
tainties of consciousness/* so I affirm all true life be- 
gins only in the certainties of consciousness. 

All other animated and organic nature is but active 
organization, not living being, for life must necessarily 
be conscious. Personal consciousness of living alone _ 
constitutes life, which involves a different and higher 
principle than organization, however active or refined 
it may be, 

Pyrrho, the skeptic philosopher of Elis, asserted that 
no man can have certain knowledge of any thing. One 
of his friends reproved him in the following logical 
dilemma : " You either know what you say to be true, 
or you do not know it; if you do know it to be true, 
that very knowledge proves your assertion to be false, 
and you do wrong to make it ; if you do not know it 
to be true, you do wrong to assert it, since no one has 
a right to assert what he does not know to be true : 
therefore, in either case, you do wrong to assert that no 
one can have a certain knowledge of any thing." 

Now, I assert that, theoretically, all human knowl- 
edge except consciousness or knowledge of our own 
personal existence, may be the result of some sort of 
psychological illusion; but this personal identity or 
knowledge of conscious existence, admits of no doubt, 
theoretically or practically. If not so, we must doubt 
every thing, and doubt whether we doubted at all, and 



80 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 

finally doubt the existence of all these very doubts, 
and thus continue to doubt ad mdefimtum. 

Close the five senses of the animal, and it becomes 
at once mentally a mere inanity ; close all these senso- 
rial avenues to man, and he is still mentally a complete 
man with the same glowing and glorious aspirations, 
ever looking and longing for the time when he shall be 
gathered to his fathers and his friends. Xo other ani- 
mal has these aspirations, and no other animal has 
man's cerebral development; and just so, many ani- 
mals in the deep darkness of the Mammoth Cave, par- 
ticularly of the piscatory tribe, have no visual organs 
because there is no light to act upon or develop them. 

And yet still further — we are taught by physiology 
that no part of us is permanent except this conscious- 
ness ; that our blood is replaced by new blood every 
two weeks ; our flesh every six months ; and our bones 
in from four to seven years are thrown off and replaced 
by new; that our very brain thus entirely passes away 
and is thus renewed ; that nothing of ourself is perma- 
nent except consciousness and memory, and personal 
identity. In the words of Professor Erni, " When the 
son, after vears of absence, again meeets the, hearty em- 
braces of a tender mother, there is not an atom of mat- 
ter on his body the same as formerly. The honest man 
adheres to his promise, though no trace remains of the 
tongue which uttered the binding word. The criminal 
is punished when already the hand which committed 
the evil is no longer the same in composition." Thus 
physical science teaches conclusively a higher and supe- 
rior cerebral development in man alone of all terrestrial 
creation, capable of receiving a principle of permanence,. 



PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 81 

which remains indestructible and unchanged, but grow- 
ing, expanding and progressing ; while all else, includ- 
ing its own tenement, is unconscious of living person- 
ality and subject to the great circular current of muta- 
tion, ever and anon floating up in form, and sinking 
down in dust. This furnishes an argument of potent 
import, on which I might expatiate with profit, had I 
time, in justice to other views. 

But even if spirit be the result of material organism 
it is something — whether perishable or imperishable, 
it is something. Now what becomes of this something? 
where does it go after dissolution ? We know where 
all the constituents of the body go; but where the 
spirit ? It may dissolve and dissipate throughout the 
vast body of ethereal electricity which surrounds and 
permeates all space and all things. If the spirit is 
only a function of the brain, this is doubtless the case, 

But it seems to be a cause, else whence flow those 
tin oughts that shoot out from the mind like light from 
the sun? I may now, though at a distance of many 
feet from most of you, make through the intervening 
medium of the atmosphere, impressions on some of' 
your minds which may remain as indelible as the men- 
tal tablet itself. Then mind is a cause, and these im- 
pressions or thoughts the results or effects of this cause,. 
But no cause in nature can perish ; therefore, the soul, 
being a cause, cannot perish. I will illustrate this idea : 
The steam engine, made by the hands and body of 
James Watt, has perished or will perish, though made 
of iron ; but the thought or idea of the steam engine, 
that originated in his mind will never perish. Now 
the causes which unite to form our body are imperish- 
4* 



82 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

able, but the result, the body as a body, is not imperish- 
able: then if the mental result be imperishable, a for- 
tiori, is mind, the cause, imperishable. This would 
seem conclusive, especially when we consider that even 
the highest development of the mere animal, as the 
Chimpanzee, the Ourang Outang, or the Gorilla, never 
gives out such imperishable ideas or thoughts, though 
endowed with greater instinctive sagacity than the Cre- 
tins of the Alpine vallais, or the Shanghallers of 
Abyssinia. But here again is a counter argument: 
Every thing that has always existed as essential in the 
economy of nature, must necessarily always continue to 
exist; but the mind of Watt which was the cause of 
the thought embodied in the steam engine, was but the 
birth of yesterday, — had no existence fifty years before, 
was not essential to the economy of nature, therefore is 
ephemeral. To this we may reply : Everything in na- 
ture serves its purpose before it perishes ; that the pur- 
pose of every thing is to contribute its part toward the 
great end of unfolding and elaborating something high- 
er ; that every thing below man thus serves a purpose ; 
but that man the highest earthly creationy for whom 
every thing was made, and to whose creation all thinps 
else conspire, serves no purpose whatever, if so be that 
he perish ; that his creation is a failure, without pur- 
pose or wisdom, unless he too, unfold something high- 
er ; and that as he is the only creation that has a con- 
scious hope of something higher, with conscious aspira- 
tions for undying love, the verisimilitude is that he 
himself, with all his conscious memories, will unfold 
into a higher future, — and thus continue nature's great 
chain of progression — else a huge hiatus here occurs. 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 83 

Again: death throughout the wide domains of nature 
strikes nothing but what it can touch ; effects nothing 
but what it can reach ; kills nothing but what is tangi- 
ble and material, and, therefore, susceptible of being 
killed. But soul, spirit, is intangible, immaterial, and 
therefore not susceptible of being killed. It cannot be 
touched, it cannot be reached, and therefore cannot be 
struck or affected by death; unless it can be proved 
that there is another and different kind of death in op- 
eration, or that the common, known death can operate 
on any other than physical matter. But the former, 
that there is a different kind of death, is not known ; on 
the contrary, all nature proves but one death, (called 
such) of which we have any knowledge. And as for 
the other only alternative that this known natural death 
can operate upon any other than physical matter, but 
may also extend to spirit, nature furnishes in all her 
ample range not one such instance. 

And further, if death is not confined to physical mat- 
ter, but may extend its ravages to the spiritual creation 
and spread its dread wing of desolation upon the uni- 
versal ether, where shall the flight of its dark pinion 
be stayed ? Where the limit to fold its sable wing ? 
Where stops dread Azrael ? 

" If human souls, why not angelic too, 

Extinguished ; and a solitary God 

O'er ghastly ruin frowning from his throne," 

through the desolate realms of a death-struck universe ! 
We are therefore led to conclude as an illative corolla- 
ry, that man has an immortal spark within his bosom 
that natural death can no more affect than it can affect 
the Deity ; that man is himself an immortal being tem- 
porarily incased in this casket of clay. 



84 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 

And again :■ man is endowed with religiosity, or 
spirituality and veneration, but the brute is not. ~Now 
where the wisdom in giving religiosity to man without 
immortal life, or in giving undying life to the brute 
without religiosity ? And further, the love of the brute 
is as deep and intense for its young, while young and 
requiring protection, as that of the mother ; but as its 
young grow up and matures beyond the necessity of 
maternal care, its love ceases and subsides entirely, all 
memory even is lost. Why so? Because its life is 
transitory; hence its love also is transitory ; and e con- 
verso, because its love is transitory, its life also is tran- 
sitory. For where is the object, the wisdom or good- 
ness in giving immortal life, where there is no immor- 
tal love ? or immortal love where there is no immortal 
life ? We know that the love of the brute is not endu- 
ring, but ephemeral ; and we know the love of the mo- 
ther is immortal as her life. Hence the wisdom and 
goodness of giving her immortal life to enjoy this im- 
mortal love implanted in her breast. 

The question now hinges on the goodness and great- 
cess of our Creator, and to this point let us direct our 
argument. If God be good he has implanted these 
principles in us for our felicity and not punition; and if 
his greatness be commensurate, he will effectuate our 
felicity. But we witness evil and suffering all around 
us — the innocent as well as the guilty (if indeed there 
be any such things as innocence and guilt in the sight 
of God) inherit evil and suffering as part of their pat- 
rimony. 

Hence, it is evident that either his goodness or great- 
ness is at fault, that either one is, or both are limited,. 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 85 

otherwise there would be no evil in existence. The ex- 
istence of evil is incompatible with that of an infinitely 
perfect being ; for if he wills it he is not infinitely good; 
and if he does not will it, his will is thwarted and con- 
sequently his power is frustrated, which leaves the in- 
evitable corollary of limit. And how can infinite wis- 
dom know all that is to come, and yet infinite goodness 
permit this immense amount of evil and suffering ? And 
how can infinite mercy forgive any sin, and infinite 
justice exact a rigid penalty? The theory of Doctor 
Dods investing the Deity with a "voluntary"' mind by 
which he creates, and an "involuntary" mind by which 
he governs, like man with voluntary and involuntary 
powers of cerebrum and cerebellum, involves the same 
difficulty, or rather fails to relieve it ; else he would not 
thus govern by those " involuntary " powers mat permit 
imperfection, sorrow and suffering. This is axiomatic. 

It is equally manifest that his greatness or power is 
limited, that he is not omnipotent in the full sense of 
the word. And I am glad to believe this, for it gives 
me greater hope of his infinite goodness at some time 
effectuating my felicity. All things are not possible 
with God. Among the impossibilities are what we 
term miracles ; indeed this word comprises every thing 
and the only thing, that is impossible with God, the 
greatest, highest power. There is no power can violate, 
suspend, contravene, or run counter to his fixed, unal- 
terable and eternal laws. He cannot possibly make 
heat and cold, light and darkness co-exist together; nor 
any two things antagonistic harmonize, or occupy the 
same place at the same time. 

The Creator cannot suspend his great law of gravity 



86 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

for an instant, as it is an organic, primordial implan- 
ted principle of his creation, for the suspension of which 
his universe would go to wreck and ruin, involving the 
utter destruction of all organic life. He can not abro- 
gate laws which he has made necessary for his own 
purposes, and for the existence of his creation. He can 
not make a two-year old — anything, in an hour, — to 
use an inelegant and rather uncouth phrase, but in 
point full of potential significance, — you will pardon 
me ; I am after the truth if I have to get it in vul- 
gar garb ; I seek the jewel if I have to dig it from 
dirty rubbish — if he could, then there is no excuse or 
reason why he does not make the high and happy an- 
gel of a centuries' development, immediately upon the 
creation of poor miserable man, as fabled Minerva 
sprung full-fledged from the brain of Jove. 

It is no answer to say that it is necessary for this 
gradual growth and progressive development in order 
that we may be able to realize through contrast and en- 
joy future felicity ; because the question recurs why 
are we so constituted as to require this ordeal of adver- 
sity before Ave can enjoy true prosperity? Why not 
have made us capacitated to appreciate and enjoy at 
once and forever all the beatitudes of heaven and 
eternity. 

But, quoth the preacher, this is " contrary to the very 
nature of things." Ah ! just what I said, for if " na- 
ture of things" means any thing, it means laws of God, 
it can mean nothing else, or what nature? and what 
things ? But as positive science proves at least four 
long periods of creation in " nature's ages," as Agassiz 
calls them, each one of which comprised perhaps mil- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 87 

lions of years, before man, even in his present very im- 
perfect and low condition, could be created, why should 
we expect any other process within the bounds of any 
power, than, this gradual growth and development from 
lower to higher. And according to these wise and im- 
mutable laws, something irresistible will never come in 
contact with something immovable. 

There can be nothing supernatural or infranatural — 
nothing beyond, above, below, or apart from his eternal 
organic laws. They constitute the wisdom, the power, 
aye, the very God ; and to violate these would be to 
violate himself; which is impossible and simply absurd. 

Hence, I conclude, our evils and sufferings are 
due, not so much to his deficiency of goodness as of 
power; that these evils are not more than he could 
avoid ; that all his works are tending slowly (to us) 
but surely to perfection : that he could not reach the 
high point of perfection and felicity which our spirits 
picture and for which we pant ; without this apparently 
slow, but really rapid, though patient process of pro- 
gression, from the most imperfect monadic creation to 
the highest angelic development. His infinite good- 
ness wills our happiness; and his vast, and to us in- 
comprehensible, but not infinite power, is working to 
that end* 

We are so constituted as to require a constant supply 
of those aliments necessary for our existence or susten- 
tation. "We require food to sustain life, Avhether that 
life be for weal or for woe. And herein is* another of 
those impossibilities, viz.: that our life, as constituted, 
can be sustained or perpetuated without food or nour- 
ishment. But God's attribute of goodness is manifested 



88 PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 

in the numberless pleasures and luxuries he has vouch- 
safed to ns, and faculties of enjoyment with which he 
has endowed us, not at all essential to the mere perpet- 
uation of our existence. Else whence this tenderness of 
feeling, this deep devotion of love, this bond of affec- 
tion, this self-denying goodness, (rare I grant,) the milk 
of human kindness, we meet with in man ? If it were 
otherwise how easily could he have made man without 
a spark of pleasure, without a pulse of bliss to beat 
amidst his world-wide mourning misery, The bare 
provision for our sustentation should not be cited as 
goodness on the part of Deity. This much is absolutely 
essential to maintain and perpetuate our existence, 
whether for weal or woe. If for woe, we should have 
been provided with nothing that was not necessary to 
sustain this existence of woe ; if for weal other provis- 
ions besides these necessary for mere sustenance, and 
also capacity for their enjoyment, would have been pro- 
vided. 

But it is evident from nature that these extra provis- 
ions and capacities of enjoyment have been furnished, 
and that we are in the actual enjoyment of them ; there- 
fore the attribute of goodness in the Creator is proven. 
As to how much, or the extent of goodness, is another 
question. How easily, if void of goodness, could God 
have left us without these provisions of pleasure and 
enjoyment. Instead of this he has abundantly fur- 
nished us with innumerable luxuries from the teeming 
land and 'ocean's mighty spawn, the half of which is 
scarcely yet learned, to minister to our pleasures, and 
endowed us with keen perceptions through which to real- 
ize their enjoyment. The myrtle and the rose spring up 



PHILOSOPHY OF' PIPE. 89 

along his pathway, while love and virtue's splendid au- 
reola throw their rainbow radiance across earth's 
stormy sky. The gift of conscience, the implantation 
of love, that happiest, holiest, highest principle, most 
exalted shrine of our being, heaven's sunbeam of the 
soul, is at once an indication of goodness in our Crea- 
tor, and of the glory we may attain in realms where 
his ripened power will turn our turgid pools into chrys- 
tal streams, our stagnant eddies of disease into raptu- 
rous fountains of health, and will pour unhittered and 
pure the waters of perennial life around the sterile des- 
olations of death . 

Then we conclude man is immortal, or a good 
Creator would never have endowed him with these glo- 
rious aspirations to be ruthlessly crushed with the re- 
lentless destiny of certain death. 

More especially, again, when we know that he lias im- 
planted within us no natural appetite or desire of our 
bodies, but for which he has also placed within our 
reach the means of its gratification. But we ardently 
desire an undying union of love and friendship; there- 
fore, we infer, he will also give us this best and bright- 
est boon. 

But mere logic is exhausted and argument is at an 
end — we look to the facts of science. Rigid reasoning 
and abstruse argumentation should rather be studied in 
print than merely heard in speech. Let us look to the 
logic of science. 

I intimated, parenthetically, a little while ago a doubt 
of moral guilt or innocence. Though not strictly called 
for in my subject perhaps, I would, nevertheless, like to 



DO PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

offer a few thoughts on this point, with as little delay 
as possible. 

Man is impelled to every action by either internal 
impulse or external influence. External influence is 
that which he can control, or that which he cannot con- 
trol. If the latter, of course he cannot be held respon- 
sible for it or guilty of its effects ; if the former — that 
external influence which he can control — he either con- 
trols it or not, as he is prompted or enabled by his in- 
ternal impulse or inherent power. 

Hence, it is narrowed down to his internal impulse. 
Now this impulse impels him as the character of the 
impulse predominates. If evil predominates, he is im- 
pelled to evil ; if good, then to good actions. These 
impulses are inherent in him and constitute as much his 
moral nature, as the form of his body or "color of his 
skin constitutes his corporeal individuality. Now the 
question is, can he control his natural inherent impul- 
ses? I will answer this by asking can he control the 
natural form of his body or color of his skin? He 
certainly can, to a limited extent, at first, modify and 
improve his natural impulses, just as he can to a limit- 
ed extent modify and improve the natural form of his 
body and beautify the complexion of his skin, — and no 
more, at first, while subject to the animal. To this ex- 
tent and no more, in low undeveloped life, should we 
hold each other accountable, and visit a commensurate 
punishment for deliberate violation — this is the true 
rationale of crime, — this much and no more. 

This certain penalty is the proper appliance to pre- 
vent crime in unprogressed men. Then if this strict 
justice be, as it should be, by all humane hearts, tern- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 91 

pered with mercy, little will be left to punish, Hence 
moral suasion, proper education, philosophic scien- 
tific development, is the great lever of human reform, 
the true principle of human progress. The more ex- 
ternal influences are brought to bear — of which con- 
sist education — the more will the impulse be moulded 
and the conduct controlled. Hence the labors of the 
jurisconsult, the salutary influence of penal law, and 
judicial and retributive example, and juridical learning 
from Bracton and Fleta to Storey and Taney, are not 
without their good results on the conduct of men ; nor 
can we, indeed, in our present low rudimental condition 
of moral development, and dense population, live with- 
out these salutary influences and restraints, 

And it is not inconsistent, though it may so appear, 
to aver that in the concrete if not in the abstract, in the 
aggregate if not in the segregate, — for God so governs 
through general and not special laws, — otherwise we 
should find no exceptions, — everything is just as it 
was designed to be by the Creator ; and in this aver- 
ment there is philosophy enough to fill a book. Indeed, 
it would require a volume to fully unfold the philoso- 
phy and vindicate the assertion; for there is method 
in the conflicts of nature as there is in the conflicts of 
human laws. Nor is it necessary to exclude the " rare 
and exceptional phenomena of nature for the basis of 
analogy and argument," as James Martincan said of 
Bishop Butler, whose " strained analogy" said William 
Pitt in a conversation with Wilberforce, " raised more 
doubts in my mind than it answered." In fact some in- 
stalled divines say that in every thing we do, we, though 
unconsciously, worship God. I do not think so. The 



92 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 

Creator has not decreed, nor designed, nor governed 
special isolated individual eases. He governs alone 
through his organic general laws; and to these general 
lavs and not to special statutes, individual cases must 
be amenable. When man strikes down his brother 
man — is that worshiping God, their common Father? 
Religionists, Christian as well as, and even more than, 
Heathen, have always preached this strike-down prin- 
ciple of persecution, and practiced it to perfection, es- 
pecially the former 5 when the victim is to them a non- 
conformist* And upon the same principle the victim 
or non-conformist, or heretic, should strike them down 
as non-conformist and heretic to his religion. And 
thus the wholesale human slaughter under religious 
dictation will be continued, unless rejected reason sup- 
plant fanatic faith, and spiritual love supplant carnal 
hate. Nor does my philosophy involve "fatalism " in 
its common acceptation, though some of the greatest 
intellects of the world, Napoleon Bonaparte among 
:i, were. decided fatalists. The celebrated argument 
of Milton, so universally accepted and adopted by old 
orthodoxy, to vindicate the Creator against the evil of 
man, by casting the blame for all our woes upon our 
first parents, is, for impotency and imbecility, unworthy 
of its source, and becoming only a third rate pedagogue, 
or pettifogger of the pulpit, if there be such an animal. 
He says man was created with 6i all he could have " — 
"sufficient to have stood though free to fall." I ask 
could not man have been endowed with greater obe- 
dience and made with greater self-control - ? If not, 
then God's plenipotent power is limited. Wnat im- 
pelled Eve to eat the apple ? Curiosity, or whatever 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 9$ 

else you please. What operated to prevent and with- 
hold her? The command of God. But t\ic latter was 
not sufficient, therefore the former, he«r curiosity, or the 
whatever else-you please, was stronger and predomina- 
ted; But God made her just that way — she had no 
hand or even will in her making — -" so was created" 
as Milton saith. 

Then in justice the blame cannot be laid to her. 
And so Adam : What impelled him to partake? Love 
of Eve. What prevented? Command of God. Which 
predominated? The former. Why? Because it was 
stronger. Who made it stronger? His Creator. So 
chloride of nitrogen is qufescent until touched with the 
proper oil. What then? Explosion, or violation of 
its quiescence, just as nature made it. So our parents 
were obedient until touched with*thc proper temptation. 
What then ? Explosion, or violation of their obedi- 
ence, just as nature made them. But man is endowed 
with reason, and " reason also 's choice," says Milton, 
(though our preachers say we must n't use it, and in 
justice to them I must say, they practice the precept, 
don't use it much, as Artemus Ward might say.) Yet 
that does not change the question in principle, only in 
stylo and extent. Was reason strong enough ? No ! 
Who made reason not strong enough? God, the same 
Creator. Milton impersonating the Creator, thus dis- 
courseth, in his own original and obscure style : 

" Whose fault? 
Whose but bis own ? Ingrate, he had of me 
All he could have: I made him just and right, 
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall, 
Such I created all the ethereal powers, 
And spirits; both them that stood and them who failed, 
Freely they stood who stood, and fell Who fell. 
Not free what proof could they have given sincere, 



94 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love, 

Where only what they needs must do appeared, 

Not what they would ? What praise could they rcccivo 

What pleasure I from such obedience paid ? 

When will and reason (reason also 's choice) 

Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled, 

Made passive both, had served necessity, 

Not me? They therefore, as to right belonged, 

So were created, nor can justly accuse 

Their maker, or their making, or their fate, 

As if predestination overruled 

Their will, disposed by absolute decree, 

Or high foreknowledge ; they themselves decreed 

Their own revolt, not I : If I foreknew, 

Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault 

Which had no less proved certain nnforeknown." 

Young states the same argument in this wise : 

" Blame not the bowels of the Deity, 

Man shall be blessed as far as man permits ; 

Heaven but persuades, almighty man decrees ; 

Man is the maker of immortal fates ; 

Man falls by man if finally he falls, V! 

• This popular argument is, in brief, man stands or 
falls, as he pleases ; if he falls, the blame is his ; if he 
stands the praise is due his Creator : (Is this justice? 
Its sophism reminds me of the " divine rights of Kings" 
as elucidated (?) by Blackstone and others:) that his 
obedience is pleasing to God because voluntary ; and his 
disobedience displeasing because also voluntary, (I'll 
continue the terms obedience and disobedience as good 
as any.) Nov, 7 speaking for man I would thus retort : 
If the power or principle of obedience and disobedience 
were equally balanced in his constitution, and no ex- 
traneous influence brought to bear, what would he do ? 
Who can answer ? Or if his obedience be expressed by . 
ten, and his disobedience by twenty, while extraneous 
influence neutralized or countervailed ten of the latter, 
what would he do ? Who can answer ? 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 95 

But here is the practical view : If his obedience pre- 
vail, he could well praise his Creator for it, inasmuch as 
God in goodness thus created him, or the necessity 
which caused this obedience that brings him happiness; 
but if God did not thus create him, and his obedience is 
the result of his own volition and effort, independent of 
his Creator, then he could not sincerely give all the 
praise to God for it, but must praise himself as " the 
maker of immortal fates-," in the words of Young. 

There is great good sense in the reply of the man 
who fell from a house and caught in a scaffolding : His 
friends said to him, "You ought to feel thankful to 
God for having thus saved you from death." "I do; 
but wasn't I cute too !" It may be replied that this an- 
ecdote illustrates free-agency, makes against me, mili- 
tates against my position — the argument seems swung 
around, in cant phrase. To which I would thus repli- 
cate: this ability and disposition to catch the scaffold 
to save himself, this "euteness" which is a trite word, 
signifying smartness, was either inherent in his crea- 
tion, that is, the gift of God, or the acquisition of his 
own exertions. If the former, of course he is not enti- 
tled to the credit — it is all due to the Creator ; if the 
latter, whence did he get the will and energy to put 
forth the efforts, and the opportunities to acquire this 
u cuteness," this sagacity, and the ability and disposi- 
tion to save himself? Now it might be rejoined that 
it was owing to his own volition that he exerted them. 
To which I put the surrejoinder in this interrogatory : 
How came his volition to act in that way unless predis- 
posed, and prebiased and prompted by some pre-exist- 
ing inherent cause? And the argument might thus go 



96 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

on. to what the lawyers call rebutter and surrebutter, 
and extended indefinitely , but ending always, if ever 
ending, in something inherent, something antevenient, 
or intervenient, or supervenient, over which he could 
have no control whatever. 

But, (to return,) if man's disobedience prevail, how 
could he do otherwise than '" blame his maker, or his 
making, or his fate?" of education and surrounding 
circumstances over which he could have no absolute 
control? If our disobedience be our own act and we 
suffer for it, so if our obedience be our own act we 
should get the credit for it, and the Creator have no 
title to homage for that which we ourselves perform 
voluntarily , But if God has so constituted us to obedi- 
ence, then all the homage and praise are justly due to 
him. Here, indeed, is something for which we may 
sincerely adore him. And if we be eontrarily constitu- 
ted or influenced he cannot injustice hold us respon- 
sible. And again : if our obedience be voluntary, 
what is the motive to its performance? Promised 
reward and threatened punishment; thus making self- 
fishness the main spring of our obedience, and cov- 
ering deceit and hypocrisy with the cloak of hom- 
age and adoration — -for the Creator hath clone noth- 
ing to claim our sincere adoration if so be that we 
are left to a decree v and our own course. But we re- 
peat if God himself hath constituted our obedience and 
its natural correlative and sequence of happiness here 
or hereafter, then we have cause for the grandest grati- 
tude and purest principle of homage and adoration. 
Isn't this the more rational view? the more logical ar- 
gument? Nay, by the old orthodox argument God 



PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 97 

himself is made the being of selfishness, inasmuch as he 
creates unnumbered millions in whom he foresaw their 
disobedience would prevail and endless misery be their 
lot, for the selfish purpose of a comparatively few T being 
selfish enough to profess obedience, which a prescient 
God must know cannot be sincere, as he has done noth- 
ing in this special behalf to make it such. Whether 
"predestination overruled their will disposed by abso- 
lute decree of foreknowledge" or not, he foreknew — 
whether " foreknowledge had any influence on their 
fault which had no less proved certain unforeknown" 
or not, he nevertheless foreknew and created them, the 
many for misery, the few for praising him disingenu- 
ously and selfishly. All that comparatively small por- 
tion of the human family, Jew and Christian, Catholic 
and Protestant, must renounce this antiquated argu- 
ment of old orthodoxy, or else renounce the attribute 
of goodness, or even justice in God, and of sincerity in 
man. 

Watson, the learned author of" Institutes," says God's 
foreknowledge is " contingent ;" and Adam Clark says 
God did not choose to foreknow. This may clear the 
mist, or explain the dilemma ; but it appears reason- 
able — and reason carrying in her hand the lights of 
science which herself hath gathered, is our God-gifted 
guide — that the Creator knew as well what would be 
the performance of his works, of his vast machinery, 
physical and psychical, as man, what will be the per- 
formance of the little machinery of his own construc- 
tion — that God foreknew as well what man would do, 
as man foreknows what the steam engine will do- 



»» PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

I cannot conceive of a Creator without prescience, when 
I see the creature possessing a partial prescience. 

As for me, I repudiate the entire argument as ab- 
surd, and would vindicate our Creator from this myth 
of mock goodness and justice. And there are many 
such myths to be cleared up under the weird of pro- 
gressive reason and science. Old orthodoxy never had 
a truth but that its priests warped and wove it into er- 
ror, and terror and horror. They would turn, distort, 
pervert and convert a healing heavenly ray of celestial 
light,' direct from the angel world, into a burning, blast- 
ing, shaft of diabolic darkness direct from Pandemoni- 
um. If an excarnated human form appear in the char- 
acter of an angel, luminous in resplendence of j)erfec- 
tion, they instantly shout God ! clothed in fire, and 
probably bright blazes of burning brimstone. If one 
appear from the shades of Sheol, darkling in the habil- 
iments and frowning face of unprogressed humanity in 
the spiritual form, forthwith they proclaim Devil ! with 
cornuted and caudated appendages bifurcated horrifi- 
caily, roaring round seeking whom he may devour — 
somebody. 

On this subject of free-agency it was a sapient theo- 
retical remark of Johnson that " all theory is against it, 
and all practice in favor of it." But these views, as 
well as that of Johnson, no doubt, are confined to our 
initial principium of life, to our earliest efforts at im- 
provement in this our first sphere of existence. It is 
evident to reason that this view must be thus limited, 
or we never could progress to any considerable extent,. 
would be little more or better than the brute. But 
science, or experience as well as reason, teaches us that 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. . 9$ 

while our ability to improve our bodies, or the suscep- 
tibility of our bodies to improvement, is limited like 
the brute; our ability to improve our spiritual nature, 
or the susceptibility of our real self to progress, is un- 
limited ; and that the more we improve and progress, 
the easier and greater and more successful becomes the 
improvement; and the more permanent also becomes 
the facility and the susceptibility of improvement :. 
thus leaving the plane of, the animal and entering that 
of spirit, where progress in an accelerated ratio is both 
the theory and the practice of undying life. And' 
though there are some persons in this animal world who< 
seem to have no capacity and no desire (for they go to- 
gether) for improvement, the animal so predominating ;- 
yet the germ is there and under proper influences will 
unfold to its destiny as certain as the needle settles to 
its pole. Then proper influences and appliances are nec- 
essary to the direction and development of this germ so 
various in mankind ; some the good predominating 
and some the bad. For the latter, penal codes are ab- 
solutely essential, and for the former, simply a freedom 
or absence from malign influences, which would deteri- 
orate them as punishment would ameliorate the other 
This fully accords with M. Guizot, one of the greatest 
political economists and jurists and publicists of the- 
times, and a man of master mind : " The truth as to, 
the nature of man is in the Christian faith ; it is in man 
himself that evil dwells : man is inclined to evil. The- 
doctrine of original sin is the religious expression and 
explanation of a natural fact — the innate inclination of 
man to disobedience and license. I hold this fact to be 
evident in the eyes of whoever observes himself with 



100 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

sincerity. To overcome it man wants two restraints- — 
an inward restraint, faith in God and in his moral laws 
— an outward restraint, human laws and an authority 
able to enforce obedience to them. Where one of these 
restraints is wanting, the other does not suffice. The 
force of human laws alone is powerless in regulating 
and keeping within bounds men who want the moral 
law ; and in order to preserve its empire over man, the 
moral law needs that human laws should come to its 
aid. Given up to itself and to its inclinations, either 
with or without, the human heart escapes and is lost/' 
Yes, and take away attraction of either cohesion or 
gravitation, and the worlds would be lost. 

But these influences are in constant operation : "We 
have for the wicked, penal laws, both human and di- 
vine, — and nature's punishments for violations are more 
certain than man's — and there are other, moral, or su- 
pernal influences, whether from spiritual friends gone 
•on before us, or from a vicarious God, or the Holy 
'Grhost, or from the very Deity, nevertheless these super- 
nal influences are in continual operation to develop this 
immortal germ into angelic perfections. And when 
disencumbered from the gross animal instincts of this 
life and its malign temptations inseparable from its 
sphere, those supernal influences will exert more power- 
fully and successfully, for the certain development of 
inexorable destiny. Theoretically man has control of 
his life; that is, has the power to end it, or change his 
mode of existence, or if possible annihilate himself; yet 
his instinctive tenacity of this life, howsoever miserable, 
predominates, and with a few exceptions, makes him 
cling to it, albeit he may have positive convictions of 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 101 

future felicity : thus showing the instincts of nature to 
predominate over both reason and religion : and hence 
proving the necessity of all these extra influences and 
proper appliances to restrain, direct and develop : and 
hence, also, applying the philosophy of Christ's injunc- 
tion, to wit : " Watch and pray that ye enter not into 
temptation : the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is 
weak." — (Matt, xxvi.) Ah ! how our spirit yearns to 
progress and rise in purity, but our animal keeps us 
down. When we get loose from this animal flesh, 
what's to hinder us from mounting to our congenial 
sphere of desired perfections, as a balloon cut loose from 
its fastenings mounts to its a5rial equilibrium ? A.i> 
other point connected with this subject : In the Chris- 
tian code suicide is a crime, but according to their doc- 
trine of full free agency unlimited, it should not be, 
because as they assert, man is free to do as he pleases, 
or as Young expresses it, " Man is the maker of im- 
mortal fates." And it should not be a crime with 
them, because, secondly, when a person has " religion " 
and is prepared to die with safety and enter heaven, 
that should be his accepted time, inasmuch as, accord- 
ing to St, Paul, " lest that by any means when I have 
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." — 
(1 Cor. ix.) Hence, the charge that might be brought 
against Spiritualism, that it would lead to suicide, 
should more properly be laid to the code or rather th© 
theology of the Christian faith. But suicide may yet 
become a necessary means of reducing the supernum- 
erary population of the world ; and when the cfireful 
chimera of sempiternal hell shall be removed from 
men's visions, many will find it a happy riddance and 



102 "philosophy of life. 

easy euthanasia. It is not difficult to conceive condi- 
tions of destitution and of distress of which a termina- 
tion without pain, as for instance a quick and fatal in- 
jury to the brain, like a pistol shot, which could not be 
felt, and resulting in instantaneous dissolution, would 
be preferable to a continued prolongation of such suffer- 
ing and misery, and lingering painful death— provi- 
ded always, the act injures no others. Napoleon on 
Helena might be such a case. " Indeed, it has already 
become a frequent occurrence in densely populated 
cities, and sometimes by persons of sound deliberate 
judgment. But the spiritual philosophy and enlight- 
ened reason — - for they are synonymous and inseparable, 
— does not encourage, nor can it condemn this act in ex- 
treme cases where all reasonable considerations favor 
and none oppose. 

We should derive this valuable lesson, to be more 
charitable to each other, and not so ready to criminate 
and resent, and punish every evil impulse and action 
in others. And from this disposition and capacity for 
improvement in man, we might superinduce another 
argument in favor of his spirit being an independent, 
immortal entity; inasmuch as no other creature of 
earth is so endowed, because no other creature has a 
continued life; but man has a continued life because he 
is thus endowed. This ability and desire (for they 
are inseparable) to improve, to progress, speaks the 
principle of immortality, for no other animal is endowed 
with this ability and desire to change in the least. But 
as there are some men who have no desire for improv- 
ident and continued life, or progression and immortal- 
ity, will, or can a just God force this boon upon them 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 103 

against their will ? Let us see : There can be no grat- 
ification without pre-existent desire; but these men 
have no such desire ; therefore, these men can have no 
gratification of progression or immortality. 

To return from this digression, it is a beautiful idea 
and as philosophical and sublime, that man when a 
helpless infant is confined to his mother's breast, that 
is his little home and sphere; he has but one desire 
and that is furnished to him by maternal love. Soon 
he grows beyond and leaves his mother's breast — the 
wide world is now his home, his second mother, which 
like the first supplies him from her fruitful bosom and 
furnishes every means of gratification for his increased 
desires and appetite, by his proper efforts to get them, 
as he is now capacitated to do. Anon, again, he ex- 
pands and progresses with his growing aspirations, 
leaves his second mother's bosom, this inceptive sphere, 
this great womb of nature in which immortality 
is conceived and develops into angelic altitudes, and 
shaking off his mortal cumbrance, as at first he did his 
swaddling clothes, launches in a wider world and soars 
into higher realms, forever progressing and towering 
higher in the heavens. I .confess myself sometimes 
startled in my reveries when I contemplate in this view 
my boundless destiny of limitless progression. What ! 
am I never to stop? Always progressing throughout 
eternity ? Where's the end ? I am certainly in exis- 
tence; and will there be no end to my existence — no 
way, not in my power, to end ? Am I to be forever 
the helpless subject of inflexible laws over which I can 
have no influence? to be forever the sport of destiny, 
and like an atom float with fate through all eternity! 



104 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

in the hands of him whose power may finally fail and 
not prove forever equal to the emergency of my well 
being! My finite spirit distrustful and trembling, 
shrinks aghast, resilient with terror, at this vast ocean of 
incertitude into which we all are so soon to launch ! 

Yet when we consider the grand creations of the 
eternal God, those wondrous worlds that roll in remote 
immensity, where seraph's wing stirs the Zephyrs of im- 
mortal morning ; should I doubt his power to bear me 
up amid his bright blaze of created glories? Doubt him 
whose ocean of glories rolls every where without a 
shore ! Though our planetary system with, its worlds 
revolving round our central sun, is sublime beyond hu- 
man appreciation ; and though our earth's distance from 
this sun ( 95,000,000 miles) and from the other planets 
and neighbors of our immediate system, so great be- 
yond our narrow conceptions; yet they sink into insig- 
nificance when we extend our ideas to the immensity 
of those remote regions, where the light from our sun, 
traveling 200,000 miles a second, has never yet reached. 

Within the reach of our telescopic vision more than 
75,000,000 central luminous suns, with numbers of 
worlds revolving round each one, exist in the boundless 
expanse of the illimitable heavens. Some of these 
suns are, like Sirius, estimated . to give sixty times as 
much light as our sun emits ; and our sun is 1,400,000 
times larger than our earth. How many more of these 
central suns, besides the millions known, beyond the 
reach of present' telescopic discovery, "roll their fore- 
heads fair to shine " in the face of Deity, is beyond 
conjecture, doubtless billions so numerous that all the 
sands on all our mundane shores will not express them 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 1Q5 

with a trillion tor a unit. The distance of these suns 
or fixed stars is so great from our little earth as to have 
no parallax : that is, two opposite points in the earth's 
orbit which is 190,000,000 miles across, will make no 
perceptible angle by which to measure that distance. 
It requires no great degree of mathematical science to 
demonstrate that an angle subtended by a line which is 
only a thousandth part of the length of each side, will 
be very perceptible. But as a subtense of 190,000,000 
miles makes with the distance of the nearest fixed star 
no perceptible angle, it is evident the distance must be 
at least over a thousand times a hundred and ninety 
millions of miles — an extent too far beyond our finite 
ideas. It has been calculated that a cannon ball (to 
adopt a more familiar illustration) descending from the 
nearest of these suns at the rate of about 600 miles an 
hour, would be more than 700,000 years in reaching 
our earth. " Astronomy indeed discovers such an in- 
conceivable number of suns and worlds dispersed 
through the vast regions of space, that the annihilation 
of this terraqueous globe, with the sun that illuminates 
it and all the planets which compose our system — our 
immediate neighborhood of worlds — would leave no 
greater chasm in the sidereal creation than the removal 
of a grain of sand from the sea-shore, or a drop of water 
from the ocean." With these scientific facts we should 
not doubt his power to sustain us forever. Thus I have 
given you in few words and succinct style, though 
somewhat desultorily, as indeed my entire lecture must 
be, from my wide field and discursive range of general- 
ization, all the original arguments I am able to elabor- 
ate in this abstruse and metaphysical field so often and 
5* 



106 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

ably explored by the master minds of the world. And 
without any pretension to an astute dialectician, I am 
unable to perceive what more pure logic without 
sophism can do by any known process of human ratioc- 
ination. Yet this entire course of argument, includ- 
ing the syllogism of Plato, is more pleasing to our 
hopes than satisfactory to our reason, — fur I will not 
paralogise ; inasmuch as it is applicable to the brute as 
well as to man : for it is evident the brute thinks and 
wills, though not to the same extent and degree. But 
af the mere superiority of our degree of mentality over 
the dog gives us our immortality, then by the same 
parity of reasoning the superiority of the dog's mind 
over that of the hog should give him immortality. 
And so on through the entire chain of animated nature. 
Then where shall we stop ? There is, however, one ex- 
ception of great significance: the difference between 
the principle of love in the human and in the brute. 
The one is perennial, the other ephemeral ; the one is 
as imperishable as its life, the other always perishes 
with the necessity of instinctive preservation of the 
helpless young. And as this principle of love is the 
grand element of human and seraphic felicity, this may 
be a true indication and illustration of its immortality. 
As Southey sings, 

" They sin who tell ns love can die ; 
With life all other passions fly — 
All others are but vanity- 
Earthly, those passions of the earth, 
They perish where they have their birth. 
OBut love is indestructible, 
Its holy flame forever burneth, 
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth ; 
It soweth here in toil and care, 
3\it the harvest time of love is there." 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 107 

But unaided logic can never unlock the vast cham- 
bers of the future — it must be done by science. As for 
the bible, claimed by its votaries having brought immor- 
tality to light, its authenticity is more difficult to prove 
if possible than the immortality of the soul, and both 
are incapable of proof unless we call in modern spirit- 
ual science, which, with its philosophy, will at once 
prove and explain the truths of both, as well as expose 
the fallacies and falsities preached from the bible and 
published from spiritualism. And don't Solomon the 
Preacher say " Men die like beasts — that man hath no 
preeminence above a beast — as is the good so is the sin- 
ner." (Ecc- iiiand ix); and Job and Isaiah intimate the 
same, (Job xiv, and Is. lxiii). 

The Mehestani, and Eastern Magi, who were disci- 
ples of Zoroaster, believed in the immortality of the 
soul, in rewards and punishments after death, and in 
the resurrection of the body. (See Zend-Avesta.) 
For this and other valuable information, I am indebted 
to u Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity," by Hor- 
ace Welby, an orthodox work and analectic text book 
of historic analects. Now this philosopher of Urmia 
and his disciples flourished 570 years before Christ; 
and only the later prophets of sacred history, Micah, 
Haggai, Ezekiel, et alii., who lived contemporaneous or 
later, that speak in any prominent terms of immortal- 
ity — the earlier prophets generally ignoring it alto- 
gether. Are we not bound, therefore, to give this 
credit to Zoroaster while musing in spiritual medita- 
tion, as recorded, twenty years in the wild solitudes of 
Elbrooz? like St. John in the wilderness nearly six 
centuries later? And to Buddha, and Brahma, of 



108 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

Hindustan, two or three centuries yet earlier? And 
to the " Code of Menu," embodying law, religion and 
philosophy, earlier than all, about a thousand years be- 
fore the Christian era ? The few sacred prophets who 
flourished anterior to these philosophers, always held 
present or temporal reward as the motive for good, or 
what they esteemed good, but which we now know to 
be in a great many if not majority of instances bad. 
The ancient Hindoo philosophers, the Parsees, and the 
Oriental Magi, were the first who held future rewards 
and punishments that I can find in all history; and the 
Jews from their intercourse with Egypt, and it with 
Persia, derived their ideas on this subject. A Chris- 
tian writer, Schlegel, in his " History of Literature," 
says, " Perhaps among no other ancient people did the 
doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the belief 
in a future state of existence, ever acquire such a mas- 
tery over all principles and all feelings, and exert such 
influence over all the judgments and all the actions of 
men, as among the Indians," (of Hindustan). And 
the idea of an incarnated deity was originated and en- 
tertained five centuries before the advent of Christ by 
all the Scandinavian nations, as the Hindoo god Vishnu 
took upon himself the form of man and periodically 
appeared upon earth ; and the destruction of the world 
by general conflagration, as well as its creation from 
chaos, was recorded or proclaimed about the same time 
in the Yoluspa, a book of prophecy by Vbla; that evil 
spirits entered and disturbed the peace of the world ; 
that good and evil are in constant conflict; that Thor 
bruises the serpent's head, etc. Is it at all strange, then, 
that these ideas as well as other parallels should have 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 109 

been derived from that ancient religious people, when 
we know that the very names of the days of the week 
as adopted by all subsequent people and still univer- 
sally retained, were derived from their theology, which 
we now call mythology, just as our prevailing theology 
will by future generations be called mythology ? Sun- 
day is so called because they worshipped the sun en 
that day; Monday, they Avorshipped the moon; Wed- 
nesday, after their god Wodin, god of battles, Wodins- 
day; Thursday, after Thor, god of thunder, Thorsday; 
Friday, after Frea, god of winds ; Tuesday, after Tisa, 
god of litigation and wife of Thor, still pronounced in 
portions of Scotland Tiesday; Saturday, after Saeter, 
whom they worshipped respectively on those days. 
Those Hindoo Indians were also the inventors or dis- 
coverers of decimal cyphers, the greatest achievement, 
next to the alphabet, of the human intellect. Just 
think a moment of this, by the use of only ten marks, 
or figures, or characters, by their various positions and 
infinite combinations, any number can be represented 
and expressed from fractional parts of one up to mil- 
lions, billions, quintillions, decillions, vigintillions, etc., 
without limit. * 

According to a work entitled " India and the In- 
dians," the Jews had full knowledge of the Hindoo 
theology, but the latter had none of the former. Now 
i t the Jews deserve the credit of divine inspiration for 
their theology when it is acknowledged they might 
have borrowed it from the Hindoos, a fortiori should 
we accord a greater credit for divine inspiration to the 
Hindoos when it is acknowledged they could not have 
possibly derived it from the Jews, having no acquain- 



110 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

tance with them, and both systems of theology the 
same. But I can not believe they had no knowledge 
of the Jews, because, if the bible history be true, they 
undoubtedly branched off into Southern Asia from the 
primal center around the Euphrates. Now it might be 
objected that these ancient records of religion so far 
antedate the Christian era that they could not have ex- 
isted, as the art of writing must then have been un- 
known. But this may be retorted on the orthodox ob- 
jector, as he claims a greater antiquity for his orthodox 
theology ; if his argument invalidate my history, it 
equally invalidates his. 

But modern science has unlocked the vast chambers 
•of the future as well as elucidated the dark traditions 
of the past. 

And to prepare your minds to expect it at the hands 
of science, let me direct you to some of her late achieve- 
ments. You must not forget that I have already shown 
the prevailing opinions of mankind to be, from the ear- 
liest ages to the present generation, an almost univer- 
sal belief in human immortality and spiritual inter- 
' course — friend with friend, incarnated and excarnated 
— -without knowing its science or understanding its 
philosophy. 

The old sciences of law and medicine have not pro- 
gressed with the pace of other sciences. I can not per- 
ceive that our modern systems of jurisprudence are 
much improved over those of other ages. The civil 
law of old Rome as digested by Tribonian is as good 
as, or better than, the common law of England as elab- 
orated by Littleton. And this is the basis of our Amer- 
ican law with no very great improvement But a few 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. Ill 

years ago it was not lawful for a man to kiss his wife 
on Sunday, called Sunday because the Sabians wor- 
shipped the sun on that day • and even now all the 
American States, except Texas, and perhaps California, 
regard an innocent recreation on Sunday as a shocking 
sin, and coerce every man by their statutes to " keep " 
and observe this day Sunday according to — what? his 
own conscience? No; to the dictation of the domi- 
nant priesthood. And yet these very priests differ as 
to the true day of their Sabbath. 

But all this despotic dysnomy of superstition will be 
swept from our statute books by the march of mind to 
that true liberty which will enable us to spend Sunday 
and any other day just as we please, provided with the 
one simple condition, that we interfere not with others 
in doing just as they please — all conscience unfettered 
from other's dogmatic dictum. I know of no such laws 
as thesejin all the Institutes, Pandects, Novels and Codes 
of Roman jurisprudence from the time of the Tribunes 
to the reign of Justinian, comprising many thousand 
volumes. Glorious old Rome — her laws have outlived 
her liberties. Did her laws spring from her liberties, 
or liberty from law ? In the language of Scotia's plain- 
tive bard, mourning his maid of Morvan, and imper- 
sonating the Goddess of Liberty, I would mourn over 
the mighty memories of that renowned Republic : " O, 
daughter of Tosear, bloody were our hands. Thou 
hast seen the sun retire red and slow behind his cloud : 
night gathering round on the mountains, while the 
blast roared in the narrow vales. At length the rain 
beats hard; thunder rolls in peals; lightning glances 
on the rocks; spirits ride on beams of fire ! Why, 



112 PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 

daughter of Toscar, why that tear? Give, lovely maid, 
to me thy tears. I have seen the tombs of all my 
friends. My sighs shall be on Cromla's winds till my 
footsteps cease to be seen. And thou, white-bosomed 
Bragela ! mourn over the fall of my fame ! Vanquished, 
I will never return unto thee, thou sunbeam of my soul !" 
Nor were the marital laws of that grand system of civil 
polity so puritanical and disgusting in domestic des- 
potism ; and female virtue and conjugal fidelity were 
higher prized and better protected. Nor was the crime 
of parricide known for 500 years, or a suit for divorce 
for 400 years, after the laws of the "Twelve Tables" 
were promulgated by the Decemviri among the people, 
who numbered many millions, and whose emblematic 
eagle, with one wing touching the sunrise and with 
the other the sunset, threw its shadow over the world. 
Are our laws, though science and art have furnished 
such greater facilities, as efficiently published among 
our people ? Over the old Areopagus of Athens, and 
Amphictyonic council of the Greek States, which was 
aboriginally a Buddhistic synod of Hindustan nearly 
3,000 years ago, from which the Greeks and Hellenic 
Jews borrowed a great part of their philosophy about 
1000 years later. I perceive nothing better in our 
present judicatories and confederations. The agrarian 
laws, more properly Licinian laws, so much denounced 
and so little understood by our modern meaning, were 
well adapted to and demanded by the dense population 
of central B,ome at that day • and the time will come, 
when our territory becomes as populous, that necessity 
as well as expediency will cause them to be adapted to 
and adopted by us, and every where over the populous 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 113 

world, effecting this end not by despotism hut by judi- 
cious regulation of tax, increasing in ratio with the 
amount of land. 

The habeas corpus, trial by jury, popular enfran- 
chisement, succeedaneum of allodial for feudal tenures, 
etc., date back six or seven centuries. But perhaps as 
Demosthenes said, their " System of laws was the gift 
of the gods," and therefore not susceptible of human 
improvement. Some departments of government in- 
volving other sciences and arts as commerce and cam- 
eralistics or chrematistics, or maratime and financial 
laws, have improved perhaps as greatly as other branches 
of human progress. 

As for medicine, our doctors have made some valua- 
ble diagnostic, pathologic, and a few therapeutic dis- 
coveries. The discovery of the circulation of the blood, 
however, so often _ attributed to Harvey, who may also 
have discovered it, was known to Pythagoras near 500 
years before Christ. He also discovered the revolution 
of the earth, though Capemicus and Gallileo to whom 
it is usually credited, may likewise have discovered it, 
and probably more fully demonstrated it. The large 
majority of our statesmen and theologians, and a large 
minority of our lawyers and physicians, are behind the 
age. Have you never noticed that whenever the pro- 
gress of science is alluded to, it is always in the me- 
chanical, chemical, physiological, or psychological, prin- 
cipally the first ? It is to the inventor and mechanic, the 
chemist and philosopher, that we are indebted for nearly 
all the pleasures and luxuries of our present high civiliza- 
tion . And yet in the popular estimation these characters 
are unknown, unhonored and unsung; while the politi- 



114 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

cian and preacher, who do nothing but spout and lash the 
populace into passion, get all the empty applause of the 
gazing, gaping, gullible multitude. All honor then to 
those great men who make for as the steamship and 
the locomotive; who analyze and teach us the elements 
of our ^ostentation ; and who unfold to* our knowledge 
the lightning of our life and the very mysteries of our 
being! We would weave a wreath of rainbow radi- 
ance around their brows, and girdle the vocal globe 
with the lightning of their fame ! 

Modern science has found sixty-five elements, nietalie 
and nonmetalic, instead of the four of earth, air, fire 
and water, as formerly believed. That earth is of many 
varieties, composed of as many combinations; that air, 
atmospheric, is a compound of oxygen and nitrogen 
(chiefly) ; fire neither element nor compound, but the 
effect of violent chemical action ; and water a compound 
of oxygen and hydrogen. And it has been found that 
nearly all of these sixty-five elements enter into the 
composition and constitution of man ; and as an epitome 
or ultimate, or microcosm of the universe, I think it 
will be found that he contains not only all of them, 
but all others, if any, yet to be discovered. The science 
of physiology which is the soil of the soul, aiid the 
science of life, is gradually unfolding the philosophy 
of our -physical, and I may add spiritual nature, for 
upon it are founded and out of it spring the perfections 
of both our physical and spiritual characters. 

We can improve and beautify our species — it is to a 
very considerable extent within the power of parents, 
especially the mother, though the daughters generally 
inherit the mental constitution of the father, and the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 115 

sons that of the mother, yet they in turn transmit the 
same, subject to the same controlling influences — by 
assiduous effort and proper training of passion, feeling, 
emotion, and objects of sight, thought, employment, 
association, to mold the offspring in the character of 
body and mind desired. And it is owing to this fact 
that so many distinguished men have uncommon names, 
inheriting the vigorous originality of their mothers, 
who would not be bound by the old nomenclature of 
John, Jim, or Jo. The mother of the great Italian, 
Dante, before he was born had a splendid vision of su- 
pernal spheres with fairies flitting before her fancy, 
which made a powerful and permanent impression on 
her mind. Dante was born a brilliant poet. Napo- 
leon's mother was very fond of riding with her husband 
witnessing the review and marshalling of troops, and 
expressed great . anxiety to witness a battle; and his 
first view of this life was on a portable couch, orna- 
mented with the heroes of the Iliad, his mother 
being borne home on it from the church whence 
she was thus suddenly called. Napoleon was born 
a great captain. "A word to the wise is suffi- 
cient," and if you are not thus wise, it is your impera- 
tive duty at once to set about the study of human phys- 
iology : for it is the study of our lives. I have read 
of the death of an infant being caused by the lacteal 
poison imbibed from its mother, who had been the vic- 
tim of a violent passion of anger. Read the story of 
Jacob and his spotted cattle — which illustrates the great 
and primary truth — he was well knowing of the fact, 
but ignorant of its philosophy — just as the prophets 
and apostles were cognizant of the facts of spiritual in- 



116 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

flux and visions, but knew nothing of their significance 

and philosophy. 

Woman wields the world and molds the character of 
mankind ; in her keeping are the destinies of the hu- 
man family. Said the first Napoleon, "Tell me the 
character, of your women, and I ? ll know your men." 

As judicious energy is the crown of character in 
man, so chaste meekness is the crown of character in 
woman — 1 mean true woman, not the worthless pet 
thing and inert toy of indolence, or the imperious 
queen who looks upon man as made for her especial 
slave, bedecked with silks and flaming feathers, or fine 
furniture and gorgeous drawing-rooms, " a pig in the 
parlor and a peacock on the promenade," as Cobbet used 
to call ? eni, who cannot string together correctly a dozen 
words of her own vernacular, (and there is no accom- 
plishment, especially for a lady, equal to chaste, correct, 
and beautiful language,) with no refinement or personal 
feminine fascination. O, ignorance with aristocracy, 
pretension with vulgarity, and wealth with wickedness, 
stinginess, meanness, and selfishness, are so ineffably 
and unutterably and intolerably disgusting. And of 
course such are ignorant of their ignorance, and this 
ignorance is their bliss — " Where ignorance is bliss 'tis 
folly to be wise." 

Nature and its philosophy stamps man, that is true 
man of action, energy, honesty and truth, as the lord; 
and the woman who does not thus view him and com- 
prehend her proper relation is ignorant of her highest 
excellence and a stranger to her true and great power. 
As an illustrious example of her potency in this respect, 
when the expatriated Corioianus, at the head of the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 117 

Yolsoi, marched upon his native city, and lighted the 
circumjacent hills of Rome with the camp-fires of her 
numerous and relentless enemy, threatening immediate 
destruction, deputations of her most illustrious citizens, 
committees of the Senate, priests of religion, old and 
gray-headed men, all were in turn sent out to him, so- 
liciting and imploring his leniency and mercy, but to 
no avail; the injured and vindictive heart of Coriola- 
nus was inexorable, and the devoted city seemed doomed 
to expiate her injustice to him and gratify his full re- 
venge. Finally as a last, forlorn and apparently hope- 
less resort, his mother and wife, Yeturia and Yirgllia, 
were sent to him, and falling on their knees, begged 
his pardon and protection. "O, my son! 55 cried his 
mother, " do I embrace my son, or my enemy '? Am I 
your mother or your captive ? How have I lived to 
see this day — to see my son a banished man — and 
still more agonizing to see him the enemy of his coun- 
try, devoting to destruction the city that gave him 
birth ? Had I never been born, Rome would still be 
free !" The stern heart of the warrior that had with- 
stood unmoved so many scenes, supplications and ap- 
peals, melted before these tears of woman's meekness, 
and relented of all its vindictiveness. The great army 
of the Yolsei, he immediately marched away : but the 
event fulfilled the sad prediction which he addressed to 
his mother in reply — a prediction which only a Roman 
mother could hear — " O, my mother, thou hast saved 
Rome, but lost thy son \" He was soon murdered by 
the enraged Yolsei. In honor of Yeturia's merit, the 
Romans dedicated a temple to Female Fortune. 

The torrent of the storm, the mountain avalanche. 



118 Philosophy of life, 

hath no such power as the streaming tears of woman's 
meekness to melt the heart of man. When the noble 
Cornelia was called upon by a vain lady who had been 
exhibiting her meretricious ornaments to show hers, she 
presented her children, exclaiming " these are my jew- 
els." Yours, ladies, is a high and holy charge; in 
your sacred keeping is the character of men. I would 
urge you as a sacred duty to study well human physi- 
ology, our anthroposophy and anthropology, it is the 
science of that immortal life which is in your hands. 
We are ignorant of the immense misery and misfortune 
entailed upon our children by this very ignorance. 

Physiological or animal chemistry, or chemical phys- 
iology, teaches that rice when properly cooked, is the 
most easily digested of all known substances, requiring 
but one hour; it also subsists a larger number of the 
human family than any of the cereals, but it is deficient 
in the phosphoric and phosphorescent, the adipose and 
oleaginous, as well as nitrogenous elements ; that the 
leguminous seeds, peas and beans, afford the most con- 
centrated and strength imparting form of all vegetable 
nourishment; that a current of electricity will promote 
the mammary secretion, and other important functions ; 
and that tin's lacteal fluid, according to L'Heritier, is, 
in the brunette mother, greatly richer in butter, sugar, 
casein, and all the solid salts of nutrition, than in that 
of the blonde; hence the children of "the former are 
larger, stouter, and more robust. But the blonde blue 
eye is more indicative of beauty, love, refinement and 
intellectuality than the dark, as exemplified in Cleopa- 
tra, Isabella, Margaret, and Mary, mother of Wash- 
ington, from whom he inherited the grand proportions 



PHILOSOPHY OP LIPH. 119 

Of his character ; and Csesar, Newton, Bonaparte, 
Kepler and Washington. The Caucassian has blue and 
the African black eyes, and the s .me pigment that gives 
the black to the eyes gives it to the skin, says Dr. 
Draper* It teaches that our corporeity is to a very 
great extent; and our spirituality to a small degree, 
modified by the character of our aliments; that the 
vegetarians and those nations sustained by rice arc de- 
ficient in vigor and Muscularity; while those who sub- 
sist on flesh have the vigor of ferocity. It is said that 
a domesticated bear when fed exclusively on grain be- 
comes gentle and docile ; but when fed on flesh becomes 
vicious and ferocious. Those with scrofulous diathesis 
of body, or gross unrefined, savage mental natures, 
should eschew that mass of scrofula, that physiological 
laboratory of lard oil, and living embodiment of gross 
savage ingratitude, the hog. But unfortunately this is 
the very mentality that can't perceive its true condition, 
and if informed and advised by friends, will not ap- 
preciate much less feel gratitude for the information. 
And further, that our spirit, mind, is developed prin- 
cipally by sunlight and other ethereal elements, while 
the body is also modified to a great extent by the same, 
either mediately or immediately. This is illustrated 
by the idiotic people in the deep dark valleys of Swit- 
zerland, where sunshine is scarce, or limited to a few 
hours in the day, and also by the Cretins. From these 
facts we should learn lessons of the greatest import for 
our constant practice. Science teaches us how to sup- 
ply the deficiency of osseous formation, the bony struc- 
ture, which we often find deficient in whole families of 
children, viz : by both parents and children living; on 



120 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

limestone water and the products of a lime-soil ; and 
on the contrary where there is a hereditary disposition 
to calculous and calcareous formations in the organs of 
the system, to avoid all these and use only rain or cis- 
tern water. It teaches how to develop the cerebral or- 
gan, which is sometimes deficient, by eating mostly wheat 
flour, as it furnishes more of the brain-making elements 
than any other aliment now known. Where fat is 
wanting, oat and corn meal should be used as they con- 
tain more of the fat-making material. For asthmatic, 
consumptive, or other debilitated conditions of the pul- 
monic organs, a cold climate or cold atmosphere, be- 
cause more condensed, is the more invigorating, as the 
winter air is greatly more condensed, and is estimated 
by Liebig to contain ten or fifteen per cent, more oxy- 
gen than summer. The workmen in one of the French 
mines, who breathe air artificially condensed to the 
amount of three atmospheres, are greatly invigorated 
and do much more work. It also renders the tym- 
panum of the ear more sensitive to sound, and the deaf 
hear distinctly. Persons of high nervous tempera- 
ments, extremely sensitive to electrical influences, should 
sleep with the head toward the North, (on this side the 
equator,) or the East, to be in harmony with the mag- 
netic currents, the philosophy of which we need not 
here stop to explain. Those whose alimentary canal is 
delicate and liable to become deranged from trivial 
cause, or who are predisposed, hereditarily or otherwise, 
to calculous formations, should use bread from meal or 
flour ground by an iron mill or crushed by some other 
process than the present practice of the attrition of 
stones, the particles of which from constant wear, 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 12 J 

though minute, exert an unfavorable influence on all, 
and particularly such conditions; whereas iron is en- 
tirely soluble and healthy. Indeed the constant use 
through life of meal ground by attrition of rocks is 
certainly deleterious, deleterious to all constitutions ; 
and he who devises some other process of grinding or 
crushing grain, free from this rocky abrasion, will con- 
tribute greatly to the health of mankind. Science 
shows us the essential service of the saccharine proper- 
ties in our animal economy ; how to make sugar from 
old rags, paper, cotton, starch, saw-dust, etc., by the 
simple process of boiling in diluted sulphuric acid and 
afterward neutralised by proper alkali; and that they 
will yield more of chrystalizable sugar than their orig- 
inal weight, and without any diminution of the acid. 
This is effected through a mysterious process techni- 
cs, lly called catalysis. In fact sugar will result from a 
certain combination of water and charcoal — nine to 
•even — because it is composed- of the same elements 
that compose water and charcoal; and so is starch, 
only with less proportion of water; and so is 
Prussic acid, the deadly poison, composed of the same 
elements but in different proportions and with the ad- 
dition of nitrogen. 

Man being made up of all elements in nature should 
use all the aliments, and thus supply the requisites of a 
complete development; as those people restricted to 
few elements of diet exhibit imperfect development. 
It teaches how to convert wood into nutritious breacL 
A simple process is, according to Antenrieth, to boil] 
fine saw-dust until everything soluble is separated,., 
then dry and heat several times in an oven until it (the 
6 



122 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

saw-dust) becomes hard and crisp, then grind into a 
fine meal, which will taste and smell like ground wheat, 
and ferment when made up into dough with yeast, 
and produce an uniform, spongy, nutritious bread. 
The value of ice in certain morbid conditions of the 
system, and how to make it for the emergency of such 
cases in mid-summer, which I will stater. pour hydro- 
chloric or muriatic acid upon sulphate of soda (Glauber 
salts) into a thorough mixture, and in the meantime 
have a small tube filled with water inserted in the cen- 
tre of the mass — the water will freeze immediately,. 
Also, a mixture of equal parts by weight of salammon- 
iac and of saltpetre finely pulverized, with three and 
a half parts of water, will sink the temperature from 
50 to 10 degrees, which is below the freezing point of 
ice. 

Ice can also be made instantaneously by passing a 
current of electricity through a bar of antimony and 
bismuth attached at one end ; and by reversing the di- 
rection of the current ; heat instead of cold will be 
evolved. It may also be made mechanically by sud- 
denly^liberating highly compressed atmospheric air or 
any of the elastic gases, which compression makes it hot ; 
and the sudden liberation cold, just in proportion to 
the intensity of the compression. The most intense 
cold known, — 166° Ft., is the result of the two liquids 
combined ; and the mixture of two others evolves in- 
tense heat. Ice for domestic use will yet be made by 
some of these means cheaper than gathering and pre- 
serving, or rather wasting. 

It informs us of the powerful disinfectant and preser- 
vative properties of charcoal when placed in a room 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 123 

with the sick it will absorb and neutralize noxious ex- 
halations ; it will also prevent putrefaction and preserve 
meat, and even restore it if not too far gone. It shows 
how to make water burn like wood, and how to kindle 
a fire out of sticks of ice instead of sticks of timber. It 
teaches us how to detect poisons, and their antidotes, 
for instances, iron rust is the antidote of arsenic ; vine- 
gar to ammonia ; caustic ammonia inhaled to prussic 
acid, the most powerful poison known ; magnesia or 
soda to oil of vitriol; sulphate of magnesia to salts of 
lead ; opium is the antidote, physiologically, to stramo- 
nium (called Jimson weed) and to Belladona, and to 
the common poke-root, the present popular remedy 
for rheumatism, which is dangerous in excess — for 
emergent cases sub-cutaneous introduction is certain re- 
lief; and all the latter antidotes to opium; coffee 
or tea is also a partial antidote to narcotic poison ; 
camphor is an antidote to, strychnine ; white of egg 
jy any albuminous substance is an antidote to the 
bichloride of mercury or corsosive of sublimate, which 
is formed by the combination of mercury with chlorine ; 
and our common table salt (chloride of sodium) con- 
tains sixty-five per centum of chlorine — hence the dan- 
ger and the remedy, of combining in the stomacli salty 
food with large or frequent closes of calomel. But the 
best alexiteric of all is, the unfailing synteretic and 
prophylactic of letting them alone, and have as little 
to do as possible with all physic. 

These are merely given as a few examples of utilita- 
rian value, also, constituting part of the philosophy of 
life, and contributing to our didactic purpose. The day 
is not far distant when science will convert the native 



124 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

nuts and acorns of the forest into nutritious oils and 
butter, as indeed it now converts beans and peas into 
clieese ; and the persimmon may become the most valu- 
able tree of the forest, as it contains the largest per 
cent, of saccharine matter, and the best and most abun- 
dant sugar will be made from its fruit, which we often 
find good granulated sugar in its native state. I men- 
tion this as a suggestive hint to the practical chemist. 
The seeds are also said to be a good substitute for coffee. 

The dense wild forests of the Amazon may yet, under 
the weird of science, be made to yield a richer harvest 
for the sustentation of man than the highly cultivated 
valleys of the Mississippi, or plains of Lombardy. 

Then behold the mighty sterm engine which is doing 
all our work, from making the most delicate thread and 
gossamer texture, to driving the huge ship over the 
ocean with celerity and punctuality. It is the pioneer 
of civilization, and the inseparable element and adjunct 
of its onward march. Science has stript it of its ter- 
ror, and we now r control and handle steam as though it 
were a harmless infant ; steam is now to man what elec- 
tricity is to the almighty mechanic of the solar universe. 
See the fiery locomotive streaming across a continent 
and startling the mediteraneous mountain genii from 
their sequestered dells and mystic caverns. In the 
primitive and medieval ages the economic housewife had 
to " lay her hands to the distaff," to work her rude 
spinning and weaving apparatus, to churn the milk, to> 
sew, to knit, to wash, to cook, etc., by slow, hard man- 
ual labor ; now under the talismanic touch of science 
the very air we breath is made to enter a body of iron 
instead of flesh, and there expanded by caloric performs 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 1 2 

all these operations through its breathing iron lungs. 
A handfull of fuel put in this caloric engine two or 
three times a day, will warm the apartment, serve as a 
cooking range, propel all these little domestic machines 
and perform all the functions of the laundry, and the 
laundress — in a word doing the whole of the house- 
work without any other stove or fire, requiring no wa- 
ter and but little fuel; and all this with perfect safety 
from explosion or other danger. Of course, we include 
in this complete economic arrangement the washing 
machine, the late spinning and weaving machine, the 
sewing machine, and the knitting machine, by which 
last a pair of socks is made in fifteen minutes. There is 
yet great improvment to be made in our clothing, which 
will all be made by the knitting machine and with a 
downy nap, or villous and capillaceous, tomentous and 
filamentous substance like the fur, hair, or fine feathers 
of animals, thus permitting the internal exhalations and 
perspiration to escape, and at the same time preventing 
the rain, or external water from entering, and also en- 
suring greater warmth and comfort, as well as freedom 
of form and action. 

This splendid little engine of air with all these ad- 
juncts, will soon become as familiar and indispensible 
to the ladies as the steam engine with its huge factories 
is to man. 

As 212° of heat (Farenheit's scale) will convert a cu- 
bic inch of water into about a cubic foot of steam, or in 
other words, expand water 1728 times, so will the 
same degree of heat expand common air, I think, about 
twice or double its original bulk. Hence the immense 
concentrated power of steam and the comparative fee- 



126 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

bleness of the air engine for heavy work; and hence the 
danger of the one and safety of the other. In compu- 
ting the power of the air engine the pressure per square 
inch should be taken not over 10 lbs., and the velocity 
of piston not over 100 feet per minute, instead of 200 or 
300 feet as ordinarily for steam ; and then proceed in 
the calculation the same as in steam or other engine — 
adopting Watt's basis as the standard of power. My 
little Treatise on the Steam Engine, published some 
years ago, explains all this to any one wishing to un- 
derstand it in both theory and practice. 

Compare that most valuable utensil of husbandry 
and adjunct of civilization, the present plow, with the 
rude implement used even by the great Cincinnatus 
when called from his little farm across the Tiber, by 
the deputies of the Roman Senate to head her army 
and save Rome from the invading JEqui and Volsci. 
And contrast our present articles of domestic luxury 
and personal comfort by the mediocral classes, with 
those, known and used by even the affluent of the urban 
and suburban population of the most favored Greeks. 

According to Biblical history there was an universal 
deluge Anno Mundi 1656 — about 4200 years ago — 
which left, after its subsidence, eight persons, from 
whom the present population, estimated at one billion, 
have descended. From this it appears that the world's 
population has doubled itself only in about 156 years, 
although the longevity of our early progenitors is rep- 
resented as greatly beyond that of the medieval and 
later ages. Now, modern statistics show the increase 
of population to be abouj: a hundred per centum every 
50 years. This exhibits a vast improvement in mod- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 127 

ern science of life, or the genealogical or chronological 
history of the bible is false. 

The interminable sands of Sahara with its fatal si- 
moon, have yielded to the weird of science, and that 
vast tract of arid desert and utter sterility, under the 
impetus of French energy, now teams with verdant 
oases and flows with the fructifying fountains of arte- 
sian wells. That immense region of aridity, hitherto 
fatal to all life, will ultimately under the magic wand of 
energy directed by science, sustain a dense population, 
and under this unfailing flow of water and certain irri- 
gation may become the most fertile and prod active 
country of the earth. 

We lay our hands upon the lightning, and his fiery 
chariot becomes the vehicle of our thoughts, that out 
travel the march of time and outstrip the sun ; we 
make a track of wire for the fiery courser and our 
message reaches the west sooner than it left the East. 
We have learned the deep lesson of the lettered rocks, 
and read the recorded age of earth in in its many suc- 
cessive periods of creation, each one of which far ex- 
ceeds six thousand ye^rs in duration. 

We learn that our globe is composed of a vast mol- 
ten mass of melted matter, of liquid fiery lava of intense 
heat ; surrounded by a comparatively thin crust of only 
a few miles in thickness — no thicker in proportion 
than is the shell to the size of the common egg, And 
this internal ocean of liquid fire is constantly heaving 
and surging in a state of deep unrest from the mighty 
chemical and electrical action of its elements. The 
effect of these great agitations, the elastic undulations of 
the earth's surface, Ave feel in the giant tread of the 



128 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

mighty earthquake. And were it not for the wise pro- 
vision of voleanoes by which to relieve her mighty in- 
testine agonies, our globe would have long since explo- 
ded to the utter destruction of all organic life. Indeed, 
these volcanic mountains are literally the safety valves, 
to this great globular, locomotive boiler of immense 
confined dynamic forces. And I might make the pre- 
diction that the time will come when man will draw 
his light and heat from this exhaustless source, unless 
the earth cools faster than science advances. 

We have even take the atmosphere to pieces, and find 
an ethereo — -ponderble or imponderable fluid filling up 
the otherwise vacant interstices between the particles of 
the densest metals, as irons and platinum, And that 
this peculiar electricity or subtle fluid permeates and 
pervades the universe of matter and mind, from the 
very internal structure of the minutest mineral atom, 
to the widest bound of the planetary system, from 
the mind of man up through the angels to God. 
I'll read from Dr. Hare's " Strictures on a speculation 
by Farraday, respecting the nature of matter. This 
sagacious investigator adverts to the fact that after each 
atom in a mass of metallic potassium has combined 
with an atom of oxygen and an atom of water, forming 
thus a hyd rated oxyde — caustic potash — the resulting 
aggregate occupies much less space than its metallic in- 
gredient previously occupied ; so that taking equal bulks 
of the hydrate and of potassium, there will be in the 
metal only 430 metallic atoms, while in the hydrate 
there will be 700 such atoms. Yet in the latter, 
besides the metallic atoms, there will be an equal num- 
ber of aqueous and oxygenous atoms, in all 2800 pon- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 129 

derable atoms. It follows that if the atoms of potas- 
sium are to be considered as minute imponderable par- 
ticles, kept at certain distances by an equilibrium of 
forces, there must be, in a mass of potassium, vastly 
more space than matter ; moreover, it is the space alone 
that can be continuous. The non-contiguous material 
atoms cannot form a continuous mass. Consequently, 
the well-known power of potassium to conduct electricity 
must be a quality of the continuous space which it com- 
prises, not of the discontinuous particles of matter with 
which that space is regularly interspersed." 

He uses the words " empty space " in reference alone 
to the metalic atoms — not of all other fluids or other 
elements. 

As an illustration of scientific precision and astro- 
nomic accuracy ; the discovery of the planet Neptune 
(named originally Le Verrier, from its discover, in 
1846) is one of the greatest triumphs which the history 
of science records. As certain pertubations of the 
movements of Saturn led astronomers to suspect the 
existence of a remoter planet, which suspiscions were 
fully confirmed in the discovery cf Uranus, so also, after 
the discovery of Uranus, certain irregularities were per- 
ceived in his motions, that led distinguished astrono- 
mers of the day to the belief that even beyond the 
planet Uranus still another undiscovered planet existed, 
to reward the labors of the discoverer. Accordingly, 
Le Verrier, a young French astronomer, urged by his 
friend Arago, determined to devote himself to the at- 
tempt at discovery. With indefatigable industry he 
prepared new tables of planetary motion, from which 
he determined the perturbations of the planets Jupiter? 
6* 



130 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

Saturn, and Uranus, and as early as June, 1846, in a 
paper presented to the Academy of Sciences, in Paris, 
he pointed out where the suspected planet would be on 
the 1st of January, 1847. He subsequently determined 
the mass and the elements of the orbits of the planet ; 
and that, too, before it had been seen by a human eye. 
On the 18th of September of 1846, he wrote to his 
friend, M. Gaibe, of Berlin, requesting him to direct his 
telescope to a certain point in the heavens, where he sus- 
pected the stranger to be. His friend complied with 
his request, and on the first evening of examination 
discovered a strange star of the eighth magnitude, which 
had not been laid down in any of the maps of that por- 
tion of the heavens. The following evening it was 
found to have moved in a direction and with a velocity 
very nearly like that which Le Verrier had pointed 
out. The planet was found within less than one degree 
of the place where Le Verrier had located it. It was 
subsequently ascertained that a young English mathe- 
matician, M. Adams, of Cambridge, had been engaged 
in the same computations, and had arrived at nearly 
the same results with Le Verrier. 

What shall we say of science, then, that enables its 
devoted followers to reach out into space, and feel suc- 
cessfully in the dark and distant ocean of immensity, 
for an object more than twenty-eight hundred millions 
of miles distant? 

But the highest, grandest triumph and achievement 
of modern science is in the domain of mind. It is tra- 
cing out the elements of immortal spirit, and the means 
and instruments through which and by which it 
operates and acts. It has discovered a refined electricity 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 131 

to be die connecting link between mind and matter; 
that it is the medium of mind ; that it is the medium 
of God and his government ; and that it is the grand 
primordial element of the universe. This is the most 
sublime achievement of the human mind — to learn 
itself, to unravel its own mysteries and read its own 
future. I'll not speak directly of mesmerism, which 
has developed such wonderful phases of human- nature, 
but call your notice to some of the marvels of mind as 
unfolded by modern biology or electrical psychology. 
I quote from Dr. Dods, who has done more than any 
one else, perhaps, to evolve this magnificent science: 
u The wonderful and startling phenomena that hover 
around it like so many invisible angels, and which 
are made manifest in the experiments produced, I have 
also candidly stated. They consist in the fact, that one 
human being can, through a certain nervous influence, 
obtain and exercise a power over another, so as to per- 
fectly control his voluntary motions and muscular force ; 
and also produce various impressions on his mind, how- 
ever extravagant, ludicrous, or wild — and that too, 
while he is in a perfectly wakeful state. I have found 
persons entirely and naturally in the electro-psycholog- 
ical state, who never could be mesmerised at all, nor in 
the least affected under repeated trials. That no per- 
son is naturally in the mesmeric state, but thousands 
are naturally in the electro-psychological state, and 
live and die in it. It is the science of the living mind, 
its silent and mysterious workings, and energetic 
powers. It is a science that evolves the majestic move- 
ment of rolling worlds, the falling leaf, and claims the 
Great Law of the universe as its own." And I'll add 



132 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

the science that involves the philosophy of our immor- 
tal life, and spirit intercourse with incarnated men. — 
" Yet such a science as this has been called a hunibuo\ 
and such men as these have been assailed." Again, 
truly and eloquently : " True fame is not the birth- 
right of the hero. The blaze of glory that has for ageg 
encircled his head, and with its brilliancy so long daz- 
zled the world, is beginning to grow dim. The laurels 
that decorate his sullen brow have been gathered at the 
cannon's mouth, from a soil enriched with human gore, 
and watered by the tears of bereavement. That fancied 
pinnacle of glory on which he proudly stands, has been 
gained by conquest and slaughter. His way to it lay 
Over thousands of his fellow creatures, whose warm 
hearts had ceased to throb ; and the musi<j that followed 
his march was the widow's moan and the orphan's wail. 
True fame does not lie here. It has a higher origin — 
a nobler birth — a more elevated aim. True fame con- 
gists in the lofty aspirations after intellectual and moral 
truth \" 

With all deference to the original and splendid 
genius of Dods, and great admiration for the frankness 
and boldness of his avowals, I must, nevertheless, say 
that some of his philosophy is, I think, borrowed from 
A. J. Davis's " Revelations," given professedly under 
spiritual inspiration, certainly under some extraordinary 
inspiration, for if not spiritual he is a most prolific and 
luminous mind, almost equal to Pythagoras or Sweden- 
borg. The Doctor also proves clearly that the circula- 
tion of the blood is caused by electrical action, and not 
by any hydraulic force of the heart, exerting a power 
of a hundred thousand pounds as has been maintained 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 133 

by physicians. But the preposterous absurdity is explo- 
ded. To say nothing of electricity, chemistry, or physi- 
ology, mechanical science in the hands of even a novice, 
can easily prove the utter impossibility of the human 
frame withstanding, or the heart exerting, such dynamic 
force. 

But have you ever witnessed any of these wonderful 
phenomena of psychology as exhibted by modern 
science ? I have seen a number of men taken promis- 
cuously from a large auditory of a refined city upon the 
public platform, and there after a few efforts put so 
completely under the control of the operator as to feel, 
think and act, just as he willed, and that too, while 
entirely awake and otherwise apparently in their normal 
condition. He would make them believe a stick was a 
snake ; water was vinegar, coffee, or alcohol, and fol- 
lowed with its effects; that a handkerchief placed in 
their arms was a baby, and they would caress it and try 
to quiet it — made to believe it crying — in the most 
ludicrous manner, being mostly young men unused to 
such operations ; that it was very cold, drawing their 
cloaks around themselves; or that it was very hot, 
throwing off their coats before a large public gaze to 
which they seemed wholly oblivious. I saw this ope- 
rator after having about a dozen men, all strangers tp 
him and well-known citizens, under his control for sev- 
eral successive evenings — for the more he practices 
upon them the more perfect becomes his control — take 
them all through a trip to California and back as 
follows: First they get aboard the ship, then the vessel 
out to sea, — goes to pieces in a violent storm, and they 
betake themselves to the small life-boat, some getting 



134 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

in from out of the water; and you must bear in mind 
that all these scenes are acted out to the life, and by 
those who never appeared before the public gaze until 
now — climbing over the gunwales into the boat — their 
terrible condition after drifting for several days on mid 
ocean without food or water; their agreement to draw 
lots who should die to furnish these necessities for the 
balance. After straining their eyes so long around the 
cheerless horizon for help, they descry at last a sail in 
the distance — they wave their handkerchiefs and even 
their garments in their effort to catch the notice of the 
passing vessel ; but she passes without observing them 
— now all hope had fled; they become frantic and fu- 
rious; the scene was appalling; but see! another 
vessel hove in sight; she nears them, she sees them, 
she comes to them, she rescues them, she takes them on 
board and saves them. This whole scene, as you may 
imagine, was truly interesting. They arrive at San 
Francisco; at the gold mines; they dig gold; they 
return home; some with $2,000, some $5,000, some 
with $10,000, in gold. Some intend to invest in Texas 
lands, some in mercantile business, one in a telegraph 
line, (being a telegraph operator himself). 

They sell their gold to the operator and take his 
checks on the bank endorsed by the names of good 
men, whom they individually select from the commu- 
nity; these checks are mere scraps of old newspaper, 
which they are made to believe valid checks ; it is past 
bank hours, they go to the bank and find it closed — 
they wait until next day. During the evening and 
following morning, their friends with the previously 
expressed permission of the operator, try to convince 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 135 

them that their checks are worthless scraps of paper, 
and laugh at their delusion, but with no success ; they re- 
ply familiarly, " you can't fool me, I know my endorser, 
and the check will be paid on presentation in the morn- 
ing/' &c. Before bank opens they are at the door wait- 
ing with impatience, a large crowd of citizens also wit- 
nessing with great interest the whole proceeding. At 
length the bank doors open ; they rush in and present 
their checks, the cashier takes them, looks at them and 
says they are not checks ; they insist that they are true 
checks, properly endorsed, &c; the cashier assures 
them they are worthless scraps of old paper and cannot 
be cashed; disappointed, they hurry to the hotel to find 
Mr. Operator, who had got their gold ; were told there 
that he was in the court house, followed all the while 
by a large crowd; in the court house they find Mr. 
Operator, who expecting them in their wrath had taken 
the precaution to have the police around him for his 
apparent protection ; they report to him the bank's re- 
fusal and demand their gold back; he tells them he 
has not got it ; they threaten his life if he does not re- 
fund it; the sheriff has to pacify them by holding him- 
self responsible for his safe custody ; they employ law- 
yers for immediate suit — the court house during the 
while crowded — and finally amidst the greatest ex- 
citement the operator dispels the illusion with which 
he had them invested since the day before, and in the 
greatest mortification and disappointment they hide 
themselves, run away, scamper off with shame. Now 
if all this be true — and we have no right to ques- 
tion the truth of those men, nor to doubt what we saw 
and heard — though it has always seemed strange to 
7 



136 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

me that the cashier could have convinced or rather 
turned them, when their friends could not convince 
them ; but may be the operator willed them to be thus 
turned; but then how did he, entirely out of sight, 
know the time to thus exert his will when the cashier 
refused? In justice to my philosophy, however, I 
should state that notwithstanding these natural suspic- 
ions, the fact of this psychologic influence and control 
is undeniably established; Dr. Dods in lectures invited 
by Henry Clay, Webster and others, at the national 
capitol, having demonstrated this mystic agency to 
some of the finest intellects of the land, and upon any 
one who chose to submit to the test, In view of all 
this, I say, what a wonderful principle of the human 
mind is here developed and exhibited ! This operator 
would also make them assume, instanter, the most gro- 
tesque attitudes with the rigidity of stone, often in im- 
itation of antique statuary, and strong men called from 
the crowd could not bend them. Strange indeed, and 
new to history, that one man can thus influence and 
control others through the intervening, all-pervading, 
mysterious medium of electricity or nerve aura. And 
numerous instances are known of persons in the clair- 
voyant condition who can see other persons and read 
their minds when in rapport with each other, at the 
distance of many miles or hundreds of miles ; another 
phase of this wonderful principle and illustration of 
this all-pervading and universal mental medium of 
electro-ether. Dr. Dods says there is about one in 
twenty-five naturally in the psychological condition, 
and that all may be brought into it by repeated 
efforts and by any one who will persevere, It all 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 137 

proves the universal existence of this mysterious hith- 
erto unknown agent, or element or essence, by which 
and through which mind acts upon mind ; in a word it 
proves the universal medium of mind, and I ask you 
to remember this when I come to explain the spiritual 
philosophy, for it is illustrative of the latter. In view 
of these great developments of modern science and its 
rapid progress, I wrote the following in a work entitled 
"Dissertation on the analogies of Nature and Revela- 
tion," published in 1857, w r hich many of you have read, 
and from which I have already quoted and shall as 
often quote as it serves 4ny subject. And here allow me 
to say that those portions of that book wrhich ignore 
philosophy, I would now correct or utterly reject; that 
our entire life, past, present and future, from the first 
inorganic germ, aye, from the primal atoms in the ele- 
mentary granite up to the highest altitudes of progres- 
sion in the great hereafter in eternity, is but one con- 
tinuous illustration of philosophy ; that there is nothing 
id all nature without its philosophy ; that there is phi- 
losophy in everything ; that all nature is philosophy ; 
and that nature's God is the grand embodiment and 
impersonation of philosophy. I would also disclaim 
and discard every idea of the infalibility of Revelation ; 
for there can be no infalibility where the finite is in- 
volved, either in receiving or imparting. Show m* 
him who never changes his opinions, never learns^ 
never progresses, and I'll show you a fool who morally 
stands still and vegetates like any other tree, on whom 
a just God should not force immortality against his 
will. " Pie who can not reason is a fool ; he who dare 
not reason is a coward ; who will not reason is a bi>ot - 



138 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

but show to me him who can and dares and does rea- 
son, and I'll show you a man," and a progressive man, 
and if honest, the highest type of God's mundane 
works. 

Tf the talented divine had said "faith" instead of 
" Christianity" when he commenced his sermon with 
" Christianity begins where philosophy ends," he would 
have uttered a great truth, for faith flourishes in the 
soil of superstition and ignorance and has no philoso- 
phy. But rational and rationalistic Christianity, or 
true religion, is founded in philosophy, and goes hand 
in hand with science; and any religion not thus is fal- 
lacious. Said preacher, I must opine, has sadly mis- 
taken in proclaiming such religion, for such religion or 
such Christianity can have no beginning, inasmuch as 
philosophy has no ending. A foppish man on present- 
ing his ring remarked to a lady, " it is emblamatic of 
my love to you, it has no ending;" to which the lady re- 
plied " it is equally emblamatic of my love for you, it has 
no beginning." It is or ought to be an obsolete idea, 
and the effete orator who would now utter it, has either 
out-traveled science and gone ahead of everybody else, 
has impatiently jumped over all philosophy and plunged 
into the abysmal ocean of "faith" to slake his thirst, or 
else is far behind the progress of the age and ignorant 
of the modern march of mind. He would remind me 
of the drunkard who was taken to a graveyard in a 
state of unconsciousness and laid out on a tombstone. 
On recovering from his inebriation and looking round 
at his strange situation, perceiving nothing but the 
silent tombs, he exclaimed, " Well I'm either the first 
that's riz, or I'm behind time — all got up and gone 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 139 

ahead of me." He lias certainly gone ahead of every- 
body else, or is wofully behind the times. But science 
has bridged this hitherto shoreless ocean of incertitude 
and found a beacon on the other bank ; or rather has 
thrown its electric wires across the dread abyss and 
communicates with the splendid denizen of the other 
shore ; while the man of faith fed on its effete pabulum 
and extinct cabalistic traditions, is left struggling in 
the salty surge, without a shore and without a sound- 
ing, midst upper, nether, and surrounding waters. But 
to my extract : 

"And it is reasonable to suppose that when death 
destroys this mortal temple, this immortal being will 
wing his night to the God from whom he sprung, in 
harmony with all known laws of nature, by which 
attraction gathers all smaller particles to the one great 
central larger of their like ; and that all thus attracted, 
congenial in feeling, desire, disposition, to the great 
attracting God, will be either absorbed by him and 
made partakers of his glory, or be fitted up in immor- 
tal tenements and provided with abodes of bliss, com- 
mensurate with their merits, where 

' Sceptred angels hold their residence, " 

While on the other hand, in accordance with this same 
universal law of nature and nature's God, attraction 
and repulsion, the disembodied spirits of the wicked 
with feeling, desire, disposition adverse, opposite and 
oppugnant to God, will be repelled by him and provi- 
ded with places of abode adapted to their moral condi- 
tion. Indeed, it is evident, as we shall hereafter show, 
that God must make this distinction, must draw some 
line of demarkation hereafter, or else forfeit and 



140 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

absolve his claim on man for the integrity of his 
righteousness. * * The whole history of man, indi- 
vidually and collectively, teaches progression is a law 
of his being, here and hereafter : individually, in the 
great change from infancy to maturity. An infant, he 
is the most ignorant and helpless of beings, not even 
endowed with the instinct of the brute ; a mere inert, 
and almost impassive germ, which under this great law 
of his progression, is destined to far outstrip all his anima- 
ted compeers of earth, to display a spark of Deity, to 
measure worlds and span the intervening voids ; ulti- 
mately to leap, disembodied, the barriers of earth, break 
through the confines of time, and become the denizen 
of an immortal heaven, with new developments of 
might and magnificence, and powers of expansion and 
progression, as boundless as the roll of eternal years ; 
collectively, in his mighty advancement in science and 
civilization, his rapid progress in social condition, the 
extent and solidity, safety and protection of governmen- 
tal compacts, the diffusion of constitutional reforms, 
and all the ameliorating influences incidental to, and 
resulting from, the improvements of science. And in 
all this progress, personally and socially, man is him- 
self made the active instrument of his own reforms, his 
own progress, improvements and emoluments. They 
do not voluntarily come upon him, reposing in ease 
and indolence. 

Franklin, Lardner, Kepler and Laplace were not 
born such; their knowledge, erudition and philosophy 
were not voluntary gifts of Providence, but were ac- 
quired by incessant effort, assiduous study, and faithful 
toil and vigilance. " Eternal vigilance is the price of 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 141 

liberty," said Jefferson ; eternal vigilance is the price of 
all progress, says science. And though some men are 
born and grow up with stronger minds, as with stronger 
bodies, than others, yet universal man, in every state, 
station and condition, is emphatically the carver of his 
own fortune, the architect of his own destiny under 
the mysterious providences of nature. 

The constitutions of England and America are not 
the gratuities of fate, but the legitimate result of a 
moral progress, effectuated by the labor of enlightened 
mind. Again, if the longevity of man has been regu- 
larly decreasing since his inhabitation of earth, when 
will it reach the point of an hour, or no existence at 
all? What the cause of his deterioration in length of 
life until about the fifteenth century, and then the re- 
action? The instability of government, the wide ex- 
tent and almost universality of ignorance, of insecurity, 
idolatry, and superstition ; and these are certainly suf- 
ficient to entail the most fatal results. That the lon- 
gevity of man, until within a few generations back, 
had been degenerating regularly, is in strict accordance 
with his historic biographies ; and that for .the last few 
generations he has fully maintained his longevity, is 
also of historic record. Now what is the cause of this 
reaction? And were it not for this salutary, saving 
reaction, exerted upon man, he would inevitably have 
degenerated into nothing. But since the effectual and 
efficient evulgations of knowledge, in the beginning of 
the sixteenth century, the concomitant diffusion of let- 
ters and learning, the conquests of peaceful science in 
lieu of bloody war; the rapid multiplication of books, 
and the birth of science, man has been enabled to 



142 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

snatch himself from his own extermination, and rescue 
earth from its threatened depopulation. During the 
long dark night of a thousand years, man's habitual 
occupation was Avar and mutual extirpation; and his 
prevailing religion taught him that the loss of life in 
battle was a certain passport to the blissful halls of 
Odin. During this thousand years knowledge was un- 
known, or locked up in night, and darkness usurped 
the dominion of day. Famine spread out the dark 
shadow of its dread wing over the nations, and death 
and desolation were winged upon the blast. Whole 
towns and cities were depopulated, and provinces 
brought to destruction. Is it strange that the average 
duration of life should have been so abridged at this 
dark epoch ? But since the rise of science in its purity 
and splendor, winged with the elements, with all its 
attendant blessings of wisdom, peace, science, commerce 
whitening the water, as civilization gilds the land, new 
dements and adjuncts, evolved of social comfort and 
progress, new edibles for man's sustentation discovered 
and transported, stability, consolidation of States and 
Governments, with the sceptre of peace waving as the 
trident of empire, and protection, progress, pojoulation, 
the insignia of his bannered march ; is it strange the 
average life of man should be again extended? Nay, 
when we consider the late wonderful developments in the 
science of electricity, the most sublime science of the human 
soul, as it is, in all probability, the elemental essence of 
all ethereal, spiritual creations, from the God-head down, 
and the all-pervading element of Nature, it "is reasonable 
to hope that man will yet be enabled, under the guid- 
ance ot his God and the design of Providence to work 



. PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 143 

out his own immortality in a world renovated and re- 
stored to its pristine eden. Providence, as we have 
seen, works by means, and has made man the instru- 
ment of his own ameliorations ; why not make him the in- 
strument of effecting his own restitution, and the restitu- 
tion of his world? Philosophy already points her finger 
to the subtle agency of electricity as a universally diffused 
fluid and all-pervading element of the universe of mind 
and matter. And though we are as yet but in the al- 
phabet of this most magnificent and boundless science, 
we can even now make the bodies of the departed 
frown, weep, or smile in death, excite the limbs and 
muscles into various action, and almost revitalize the 
cold clay. We have seen the sick and the suffering 
healed and restored and eased in an instant by this 
invisible fluid. Indeed, the boundless universe, as well 
as the complex machine of man, especially his nervous 
system, in all its minute and mysterious ramifications, 
which is nothing else than his psychological connection 
with matter, which is nothing else than electrical or- 
ganization, is all under the predominating influence 
And control of this mighty and mysterious element oi 
essence, in its vastly various modifications.* And the 

TIME MAY COME, WHEN MAX, CLIMBING STEP BY STEP 
THE ABSTRUSE ALTITUDES OF THIS MIGHTY PHILOSO- 
PHY, WILL BE ENABLED TO UNLOCK AND LOOK INTO 
THE SECRET RECESSES OF JEHOVAH'S GREAT LABORA- 
TORY OF LIFE, AND HAND IN HAND WITH SCIENCE, 
THE PROGRESS AND PERFECTION OF MIND AND 
MORALS, CO-OPERATIVE, COTEMPORANEOUS AND CO- 
EXTENSIVE with his Divine Revelations shall 

DEVELOP THE DESTINIES ORDAINED BY HIS CrEATOB 

*.7 



144 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

FOR the world^ shall stay disease, expel sin and hatred 
implant piety and love, and by the direction of Providence, 
weave out again his lost and tattered garments of im- 
mortality. What is this but the millenium? What 
is the millenium but prophetic Revelation? And are 
we not evidently drifting to its consummation ? Bather, 
are toe not working to this end f If so, is it not a proof 
of the prophetic inspiration of Revelation? Earth 
may yet be renovated and restored, and made a fit 
heaven for the good and the true ; and man himself, 
as he is ever made the instrument of all his own amelior- 
ations, may be made the instrument of this, his last and 
mighty consummation, through the means of this univer- 
sal, ethereal and omnipotent agency, electricity, the philos- 
ophy of all mind, and all matter, and all life on earth 
and everywhere ; aye, the great philosophy of God! Then 
for the resurrection ! when Revelation shall have ac- 
complished its mission — what a sound breaks upon the 
ravished ear ; what a scene bursts upon the enraptured 
vision of fancy ! Father, mother, loved and long-lost 
friends awakening into life, and coming forth again to 
■clasp the |rm of love that never more shall break! 
"Verily, the echoes -of Odin's halls are hushed, the 
•charms of Thor have departed, and the virgins of the 
Vaihallah have lost their fascinations. Verily, the 
mighty fabric of mythology, that so long spread its 
desolating shadow over the nations; that stupendous 
temple in which the spirits of superstition offered in- 
cense, and ignorance run riot; that vast structure, built 
of human bones and cemented .by their blood, beside 
which Tamerlane's pyramid of seventy thousand human 
skulls is as nothing ; this mighty collossus, which so 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 145 

long has stood the tempests of time and flourished in 
its whirlwinds, is crumbling into ruins. The fiery 
lightnings and thunder-bolts of heaven have scathed 
its grey summit, the earthquake roll of revolution has 
sv/ept its hoary base, yet it stood and triumphed in the 
storm; commotion was its preservative element; and 
the roll of revolution its loved melody. But this Rev- 
elation of true and eternal God has tranquilized the 
troubled elements, has stilled the tempest, disarmed 
the whirlwind, and whispered peace, purity and love 
into the ears of the moral tornado, in which that fabric 
flourished ; has shot light athwart its dark and dismal 
dungeons, has encircled its pinnacle in sunshine, in- 
vested the whole structure in a heavenly influence, and 
lo ! it crumbles into bitter ashes ! Is not this a triumph 
and a conquest? Let history answer!" These adum- 
brated vaticinations, aye, direct prophecies without 
ambiguous symbols, with no professions of inspiration, 
were penned, be it remembered, before I knew anything 
of the spiritual philosophy, as some of you are aware, 
True I had read newspaper accounts of spiritualism as 
a strange illusion among some people in that hot-bed 
of hallucination and frenzied fanaticism, in the Northern 
States — and good has come out of Nazareth — but knew 
nothing of it as worthy the name of science, and only 
regarded it with contempt. I was first led to investi- 
gation by a course of lectures which I heard delivered 
in the city of Galveston in 1858 by Thomas Gales 
Forster, nephew of Mr. Gales of the National Intelli- 
gencer. It was as a mere pastime to spend a leisure 
evening that I attended his first lecture, at which I 
found but a small audience. When I went home and 



146 PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 

retired for the night I could not rest nor sleep, so 
deeply impressed was I, and felt disposed to write an 
editorial for the next morning papers, calling the atten- 
tion of the citizens to his magnificent eloquence that 
they, too, might enjoy it with myself. I had to get 
up, get the candle and light it myself; get my writing 
tackle (portable desk), and waited upon myself all 
through without disturbing any one, contrary to my 
usual custom, as we always had a young servant at 
hand to wait upon me in such cases. After inditing 
the article I again laid down and rested and slept com- 
posedly and quietly. I will read the article — it is 
short — together with the prefatory remarks made by 
the editor of the "Galveston News:" "Professor 
Forster delivered his first lecture last night, and e 
hear the most unbounded applause bestowed on him 
by those who were present as having far surpassed in 
his power of eloquence all efforts of elocution ever be- 
fore witnessed by them. Such is the testimony of all, 
We append the following testimonial from one of the 
most intelligent among our citizens whose initials will 
loubtless sufficiently designate the writer. He will 
alloAved to be a good judge of true eloquence." 

Editors News: Allow me to say that Mr. Forster's 
effort last night for intense eloquence and majestic sub- 
limity — and I don't express more than half my feel- 
ings, my judgment, my soul — was the most splendid 
lecture, the most eloquent oration, the most magnificent 
effort of human intellect and god-like grandeur that 
•ever blazed before my mental vision or thrilled the 
tendrils of my heart. Immortality and glory, borne 
.upon philosophy, towered as the theme from the chil- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 147 

dren of the earth to the God of the heavens. I don't 
know the man, never saw him before, nor does he know 
me. Would that he might speak every night and all 
night. O, the sublimejstrides of the soaring soul to- 
ward the eternal God and his angel immortalities! 
The discriminating editor of the "News" with his 
large experience, when he said the other day that the 
most eloquent lecture he ever heard fell from Mr. Fors- 
ter's lips, said a great deal and yet he said nothing. 
The pages of human history filled with the eloquence 
of ages, from Cicero to Clay, from Massillon to Maffit. 
not stopping to look away down upon the pigmy, piping 
preachers of the times, who stick like blue mud to the 
bright wheels of religious progress—the pages of hu- 
man eloquence I say, are filled and yet are blank. Like 
the morning sun just risen from his eastern couch, 
dissipating the fogs of night and robing the earth in 
radiance, Mr. Forster rises and throws his thoughts of 
light like a morning rainbow from the animal to the 
angel world. The vestal fires that burn upon the 
altars of eternity ssem kindled in his bosom, and he 
it breathes the flame into the hearts of his hearen 
If I had to characterize in three words his overwhelm- 
ing eloquence, composed as it is of philosophy and rea- 
son, argument and ellocution, brilliancy and beauty, 
sublimity and majesty, prose and poetry, fancy and 
fluency, I should say power, power, power. 

You may say I am utterly carried away; yes, and I 
hope to continue to be thus led away from this death- 
drifting stream of time, in the lofty soarings of the 
soul after the loved and lost, and the great, the good 
and the glorious. [Signed] S. S. R.." 



148 PHILOSOPHY OF LIF] 



to be 



The lecturer spoke with Lis eyes closed, professing 
the mere mouth-piece of the disembodied spirit 

of an eminent English orator whose name I have for- 
gotten. Since then I have studied spiritualism (so 
called) under the lights of modern science; and I can 
truly say, despite past prejudice, that, whether true or 
false, it is by far the grandest system of philosophy 
ever promulgated on this planet within the range of all 
historic record. 

Now, in view of all the facts and truths I have pre- 
sented, especially the great developments of late scien- 
tific research in the domain of mind, is it wonderful 
that we are able to hold communication with our de- 
parted friends near at hand ? if, indeed, they are still 
living? And when we consider, in this connection, 
another scientific truth, vizi that if we leave our orb 
and its immediate environs in order to imagine any lo- 
cation beyond the range -of astronomical bodies as 
abodes far our spirit friends, it would place the locality 
at a distance, according to Herschel, requiring nineteen 
hundred thousand years for souls to travel, moving 
with the velocity of light two hundred thousand miles 
in a second. Our first parents Adam and Eve have by 
this time only got one-three-hundred-and-sixteenth 
part of the way to heaven, though they started early 
in the morning of creation, (by the Mosiac record) and 
have been traveling with the speed of light ever since. 
They have accomplished only 6000, and have yet 
1,894,000 before them to get there. If we infer such a 
general and distant place of reception for spirits, then 
in that celestial emporium every soul from all the my- 
riad of worlds must congregate. "Far more rational 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 149 

would it not seem/' says Prof. Hare, " that our heaven 
should be associated with our own native planet, in the 
welfare, the past history and future prospects of which 

the souls who were born upon it must take pre-eminent 
interest*" What a delightful, what a happy thought is 
this, that immediately after our dissolution, which 
really is the date of our true nativity, our grand natal 
day into life unencumbered, like our first birth from a 
more encumberhd and confined life to one more en- 
larged and unencumbered, 'that, instead of being trans- 
ported to re note and unknown places of incalculable 
distances, we can be near by and look back at friends 
depositing our cold casket, now tenantless,. in the tomb — 
the casket of clay which w r e so lately inhabited, and 
through which as a necessary material medium we 
moved among material things in a sphere of physical 
materials; that from thenceforward and f)rever after, 
without end, ive may continue to linger around the 
loved localities of our infantile associations — the old 
homestead, our native hill, the rocky spring, the purl- 
ing brook, the tall pines moaning in the wind, the 
tough tupelo from which we made our boyish tooth- 
brush, the stately poplars, the umbrageous elm, the 
stalwart oak, or early, sweet and shady maple, where 
we passed the happy boyhood time of our earliest years ; 
that we can always be personally present with our 
loved children and friends, participating in their pleas- 
ures and rejoicing in their- progress, or sympathising 
in their sorrows and mourning — though only for a 
brief season — over their moral miseries which must 
accompany their moral retrogression, which also must 
of necessity be only temporary, for God's works all 



150 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

grow upward/ with occasional temporary retrograde 
movements, which in His boundless destiny of eternity 
only amount to momentary retardations. I avow it, 
that this faith, or rather philosophy, that my cherished 
and revered friends gone before, can be and are pres- 
ent to witness with grief, or even the slightest shade of 
sorrow, my every action of sin or of wrong, has the 
greatest power to restrain me in every impulse of pas- 
sion or temptation to sin, of all the influences and 
agencies of which I am cognizant, or which have ever 
been brought to bear upon my moral actions. It is tc 
me a shield of celestial temper. The wish that we have 
often heard of being able to visit the earth again in 
one hundred or five hundred years, is to be gratified 
every hour, every year, every century and forever. 
That from a contiguous standpoint in eternity we can 
witness the progress and improvement of our children 
and grand children and posterity through all future 
generations on the initial inceptive plane of earth below 
us, as erstwhile we witnessed their bodily growth for a 
few years in the clay. This is a glorious thought, and 
Modern science with trumpet tongue proclaims it- 
truth. But we anticipate our subject. To return in 
order. 

And more especially when we take into consideration 
the growing doubt and disbelief in the miraculous 
phase of the Bible religion, particularly among the in- 
telligent and scientific. Indeed the materialistic phi- 
losophy, to-wit : that spirit is the result of material or- 
ganism ai*d perishes with ifc, is rapidly deracinating the 
old Christian faith. And where's the wonder ? What 
truly scientific man can swallow whole — to use a com- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 151 

mon but expressive phrase, that mythic old book with 
all its crudities, cruelties and absurdities? I don't 
mean the cardinal truths of man's immortality, the 
conditions of future reward and punishment, love, 
truth, peace, charity, spirit communion, etc., as incul- 
cated by Jesus ; as founded in philosophy and approved 
by science ; but all that vast mass of animal rubbish, 
historic falsehood, talmudic fable and mythic supersti- 
tion. Let me cite a few out of the mass of these fables, 
contradictions, absurdities and bloody edicts. It dates 
the creation 5866 years ago : whereas we know from 
geological facts that this length of time would not fill 
up the smallest period in the successive epochs of crea- 
tion. It says light was created the first day, and the 
sun on the fourth day. The Jews are represented to 
be a pastoral and predial people, the most fickle, un- 
stable and capricious, always seeking after strange gods ; 
whereas all other history and our own observation 
make them just the reverse, a commercial people, the 
most stable, stubborn, tenacious and pertinacious on 
earth — in fact this is their predominating character- 
istic. The old bible defender can't controvert or clear 
away this inconsistency ; he can only say the Jewish 
character has changed. But that will invalidate one 
of his main arguments in support of the bible, for the 
Jews are appealed to as a standing immobile monument 
of its truth. But if they have been changed by the 
curse, the curse has proved a blessing, for it has riveted 
them to the one living God, instead of roving after the 
many idols as in the days of Moses. In the first chap- 
ter of Genesis after He had finished the creation of the 
world and man, He pronounced them " very good." 



152 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

Yet in the sixth chapter, He repented having made 
man. And St. James says He is "without variableness 
or the shadow of turning." It pronounces a curse 
through all time upon the whole maternal portion of 
the human family, but science has negated this proph- 
ecy and disarmed the cruel curse of rending, racking 
pains and throes — and every mother should thank Drs. 
Morton and Jackson for chloroform. I was just about 
to predict, but as quickly remember that the would-be 
prediction is already history, to-wit : the use of this or 
any other anesthetic agent for this special purpose will 
be denounced by the ignorant bigot as subverting God's 
law in this behalf, pronouncing a special curse on wo- 
man, inasmuch as she was the first who brought death 
into the world and all our woe. • I have already heard 
this denunciation. 

The Christian Prof. Hitchcock says: " Tine intro- 
duction of death into the world and the specific char- 
acter of that death described in scripture as the conse- 
quence of sin, are the next points where geology 
touches the subject of religion. Here, too, the general 
interpretation of scripture is at variance with the facts 
of geology, which distinctly testify to the occurrence of 
death among animals long before the existence of man. 
Shall geology here also be permitted to modify our ex- 
position of the bible ?" Again : " It is now generally 
agreed that geology cannot detect traces of such a 
deluge as the scriptures describe," etc. 

The old dispensation which men yet worship as the 
inspiration of God, inculcates cruelty, murder, treachery 
and all manner of the blackest turpitude known in the 
calendar of crime; and all connived at and even ap- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 153 

proved under the direct sanction and even instructions 
of their God: Instance the stoning to death by the 
Jews of their children for disobedience, the massacre of 
the whole nation of the Midianites, with the reservation 
of the virgins tor violation by the bloody murderers of 
their kindred ; the outrageous fraud and deception on 
the part of Jacob ; swindling the Egyptians by borrow- 
ing their ornaments with the intention of stealing: them. 
Saith Samuel, the pope of Judea, " Now go and smite 
Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and 
spare them not ; but slay both man and woman and 
infant and suckling babe," etc., for a wrong done by 
their ancestors some hundred years before. Gocl is 
troth ; yet in 1st King xxii, he is represented as em- 
ploying a lying spirit to allure and lead Ahab through 
lies to his certain destruction ; thus proving by Bible 
authority that there are lying spirits, which I've no doubt 
is true; and that God sanctions lying, which I've no 
doubt is not true. Compare the holy Moses as lawgiver 
and examplar of morality, with the pagan Solon ; and 
the Christian Abraham with the ethnic Roman Virgin- 
ius, especially in reference to their treatment and con- 
ception of the chastity and purity of their wives and 
daughters. And yet Abraham is said to be the father 
of the faithful. David, the great king and sweet singer 
in Israel, author of the Psalms, was an adulterer, a 
polygamist and a murderer, though the high moral tone 
of some of his latest'productions deserves commendation 
and indicate decided reformation ; Solomon, author of 
Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, was also an adulterer, sensu- 
alist and polygamist, and his canonised song is a dis- 
gusting specimen of concupiscence, sensuality and ob- 



154 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

scenity; and even Mary Magdalene, according to some 
biblical critics, was not sans reproach ; but if such be 
the fact I am satisfied she thoroughly repented and re- 
formed before' or when she became so devoted a disciple 
of the pure minded and virtuous Jesus. 

Josephus speaks of prominent and patriotic Israel- 
ites Corah, Zimri, and others publicly denouncing Mo- 
ses as a usurper and ambitious despot. It is also said 
in the Bible that God tempted Abraham ; St. James 
says God tempts no man. It says Moses and the sev- 
enty elders saw God who appeared also to Abimelech ; 
St. John and St. Paul both say no man hath seen God. 
The old bible commands that " there shall not be found 
among them one who consulteth familiar spirits," Avhich 
has been quoted against spiritualism by its orthodox op- 
ponents, in direct contradiction to the injunction in 
Kings just cited. And St. Paul, St. John, et. al. of the 
New Testament command us to " desire spiritual gifts," 
"try the spirits," "quench not the spirit," that we 
" shall see the angels ascend and descend ;" that " the 
gods come to us in the form of man," &c. Solomon says 
" men and beasts have one breath ;" " as one dieth so 
dieth the other — all things come alike to all : there is 
one event to the righteous and to the wicked." (Ecc. 
iii andix.) It also says there is nothing new under the 
sun ; yet it says the rainbow is a new creation hung 
out as a sign that there shall be no more flood. It says 
what has been shall be again ; yet it also says there shall 
never be another flood. Even Jesus is represented as 
saying " Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on 
earth? I tell you nay : but rather division. I am not 
come to send peace but a sword. Eor I come to set a 



PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 155 

man at variance against his father, daughter, son," &c. 
(Math, x,) — which has proved literally and terribly 
too true. And then his utterances to the very contrary, 
which are truly worthy of inspiration. But who fol- 
lows them? who takes no thought of the morrow? 
what he shall eat, or wear ? who, when asked for one 
gives two? when smitten on one cheek turns the other? 
Loves his enemies, never resents an injury, loves his 
neighbor as himself, returns good for evil, and bears 
all indignities and wrongs without resentment, but 
with meekness, forgiveness and charity? Not one. 
They, his followers, rely alone upon the unreliable myth 
of futile faith. And can it be for a moment believed 
that a good and gracious God would poise an endless 
heaven and an endless hell for his children upon the 
mere fact or act of their faith ? On this subject I will 
introduce a little allegory I wrote some time ago, but 
never published, now, appropos : 

POP THE BRETHREN OF CREEDS. 

Faith and all her credulous children have for a long 
time been preaching up a doctrine that there are two 
other countries with certain fruits away off in the dim 
distance of hereafter. One of said places is on the other 
side of Jordan, through whose boisterous waters they 
say, we have to pass in order to reach it, the home of 
Abraham and Sarai. The other country some say, is 
across the river Styx, the regions of Pluto and Proser- 
pine. Both these places bear peculiar fruits. True, no 
one of them has ever seen these places or tasted their 
fruits, but then quoth they, it is all just so because it is 
so. And of all their millions that have passed that way 
not one has ever returned and reported.. All earth's 



156 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

children, they solemnly asseverate, will go down across 
the Styx into outer darkness, where brimstone burns on 
grated gridirons to fry them for a carnival of fallen 
angels, who will feast forever on their fat and flesh, or 
rather the delightful sight of their frying flesh ; unless 
they, or we, the said children of earth, adopt certain 
manners — and they vary very much in the manner of 
these manners — the main one of which is faith, faith, 
that is to believe it all and nothing else. And what do they 
believe ? They believe what the church -believes : and 
what does the church believe ? It believes what they 
believe : and what do they and the church together be- 
lieve ? They both believe the same thing. 

" For by faith are ye saved, and that not ol your- 
selves, it is the gift of God through the Lord Jesus 
Christ/' " I say, Mr. Poodles, what makes the boat go?" 
" Why you see this thingumbob goes down through 
that hole and fastens the jigmaree, and that connects 
with the crinkum cramkum ; and then that man he's 
the engineer, you know, turns the circumlocutionary 
genuflection which impinges on the hydrostatic valvular 
pendulum, and they all shove along, and the boat goes 
ahead." Some say that in order to escape this terrible 
Styx, and reach the blessed banks that loom up on 
the other side of Jordan, you must take water, (immer- 
sion,) others that you must go through rain, (sprink- 
ling,) some again that you can't go at all by yourself, 
but must be packed on the back of a priest ; that he 
alone can put us through safe; and still others that your 
heart has to be radically changed by a special fiat of the 
reigning Jehovah from his distant throne on the apex 
of the universe. There is also another class who preach 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 157 

that some and far the greater number will land across 
Styx in utter darkness, in spite of faith or anything 
else, that the Creator has so decreed it before the first 
block was laid for the temple of creation ; and that a 
select few will be by the same decree safely landed 
across Jordan, in spite of will or wish, why or where-, 
fore. 

In short, some preach universal salvation, but prac- 
tice nothing to prove it ; while others preach almost as 
universal damnation, and prove their preaching by 
their practice. 

ISTow, the mighty developments of modern science — 
and science we know can never mislead, for it traces 
the tracks of Deity and follows in the footsteps of the 
creator — have shown to the progressive intellects of 
the children of reason, that a great portion of the creed 
of faith and her brood is utterly futile and fallacious, 
dogmas of ignorance and mere myths of the past. And 
old Faith began to grow weak as she felt her creeds 
crumbling at the touch of science, and all her children, 
especially those that suck the paps of their fat mother, 
were taken with a trembling. Now it came to pass at 
this conjuncture, that Truth lent her light and science 
was enabled to trace a straight track to this great un- 
known hereafter, and prove positively by those laws 
and workings of nature's creator, which she had already 
known, that it is not dim and distant, but bright and 
near at hand; not mysterious and inexplicable, but 
natural and philosophical ; that it is not a myth, but a 
truth; that there is no sulphurous Styx, nor lutarious 
Jordan, to engulf forever the majority of mortals; that 
there are not different and diverse roads, nor cold creeds, 



158 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

nor hot hells, nor formal faiths of numan dogmas ; but 
one natural, straight, clear, unchanging, track through 
which all earth's children easily pass into its portals ; 
and to crown it all, the rationale of the whole trip is ex- 
plained and proven on the known principles of immu- 
table philosophy. Bat what thanks have Faith and 
her followers awarded science for this mighty succor in 
this their trying time of need and sore travail? Ridi- 
cule, sneers, curses, anathemas, excommunications, aye, 
their old burning brimstone and sulphurous flame. 
Now Reason, the enlightened umpire and impartial ar- 
biter, wishes to know the rationale of this black ingrat- 
itude and bitter hostility. Is it to continue the dark 
clouds of their mythic creeds in order to keep the flesh- 
pots full and feed and fatten the rapacious ravens of the 
human soul? Or is it to furnish, by Faith and her 
creed-cursed children, proof positive of the necessity of 
this future frying pan for earth's sorrowing children, 
and if necessary for them, the pious, a fortiori, is it nec- 
essary for all outsiders — ergo the brimstone world of 
eternal torment is demonstrated! — to their supreme 
satisfaction ! 

Then all the dearest duties and desires and doctrines 
of reason and science — and they are the mighty giants 
of the age, yoked to the car of Truth to crush out error 
— are decidedly and radically inconoclastic, and so must 
continue until the ignorance, superstition and hypoc- 
risy of old stall-fed theology, and his crimson creeds, 
shall, like murky midnight, melt into the morning of 
light, love and felicity. If this makes me an iconoclast 
I should glory in the iconoclasm." 

But if Jesus intended those pure precepts, already 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 159 

enumerated, to be practiced by his followers alone — 
and without extra pretension as a philologist, by every 
principle of hermeneutics, we are so to understand them 
— what would be the result to them individually and 
collectively? Immediate ruin manifestly to every one 
and all of them. On the other hand, if he intended 
them for the wmole human family, and they should be 
thus universally practiced, they then become in theory 
a splendid system of ethics, worthy of their illustrious 
author. But Jesus is worshiped as a God, or rather 
the God; yet he says, "Why callest thou me good? 
There is none good but one, that is God." — (Matt. xix). 
" Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only 
shalt thou serve." " That there is but one God and he 
is .in heaven — that it is not his to give, but his 
father's," etc. 

The splendid Milton is so often cited as the pink of 
Protestant orthodoxy, that I should mention here his 
posthumous state papers published in 1823, prove him 
to have become decidedly Arian in his opinions on this 
point ; that the character of Jesus was moulded in the 
most perfect model of human nature, the beauty, har- 
mony, and symmetry of his proportions, constituting 
the most perfect paragon of humanity that ever existed ; 
but not God. And what sensible, scientific man of this 
day can believe otherwise? Milton lived a century 
ahead of his contemporaries. That Jesus was a most 
perfect harmonic man, with the highest spiritual en- 
dowments, it is only necessary to state, for those who 
even doubt these transcendent merits, that from the 
Acta Pilati transmitted to Rome, Tiberius Caesar, the 
emperor, was influenced to suggest to the Senate the 
8 



160 PHILOSOPHY OF LlFfi. 

propriety of admitting him among the number of Gods, 
and sent his own prerogative vote, in favor of the meas- 
ure. But Jesus was not our God and Creator, for all 
this and much more, for all his splendid preceptions 
and wonderful revelations and apocalypse and exalted 
practices; he was our great) gifted, spiritualized 
brother of humanity and illustrious exemplar of social 

life. 

Jesus also says to Peter, " Thou art the rock on which 
I build my church;" and after a few minutes again^ 
says to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an 
offence to me." The old Roman law, if I recollect right- 
ly, required two witnesses to substantiate the allegations 
of a party. Jesus, alluding to this, offers himself as 
<one of the two witnesses, to prove his own affirmations. 
Does this not indicate weakness or at least human fallibil- 
ity ? It frequently inculcates and it is the general inter- 
pretation of both Jew and Christian, with some modern 
-exceptions, that future punishment is eternal or ever- 
lasting, yet we find the contrary taught in Isa. Ivii. 16 : 
Rom. viii. 21 ; 1st Cor. xv, 22 ; Phil. ii. 9 ; Col. I 20 
1st Tim. ii. 1 ; Rev. xxi. And the Christ himself say* 
" And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw ah 
men unto me." Per contra, we find everlasting puni- 
tion taught in Isa. xxxiii, 14; 2nd Thess. i; and the 
same Christ says, in Matt, xxv., « the wicked shall go 
into everlasting punishment and the righteous into life 
eternal." But in Jude, the word u everlasting" is used 
to last only until the judgment, the great assize. John 
the Baptist proclaimed Jesus the Messiah immediately 
on his advent; yet when in prison, near the end of his 
.career, he sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus ana 



PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 161 

ascertain if he was the Messiah. Jesus says, " he thai 
is not against us is for us," Luke ix. 50 ; and ib. xi 23, 
" he that is not with me is against me." And again, in 
Matt. x. 5, Jesus commands his apostles to " go not into 
the way of the Gentiles, nor the Samaritans," etc., and in 
ih. xxviii. 19, he tells them^o "go into all nations," etc., 
How can the atrabiliary de\ otee of incarnated Deity,God. 
manifest in the flesh, as they call it, reconcile these flat 
contradictions? How could Jesus be of the lineage of 
David, when Joseph, said to be of this line, is repre- 
sented not to be his father though the husband of his 
mother, who wsrs also not of this house? As a speci- 
men of the loose and -unreliable relations of the gospel 
writers, and their many discrepancies and incongruities, 
the locality of the denunciations against the Pharisees 
and Sadducees is given in Gallilee, when they would 
be appropriate alone to Jerusalem, as these sects flour- 
ished there instead of Gallilee. And so on throughout 
this great chapter of biblical religion, which men vene- 
rate and worship as the direct inspiration and miracu- 
lous dictation of the great God in person; as the 
infallible and immaculate oracles of our heavenly father. 
In charity, however, if not justice, it is my duty to 
state, that many of those who pretend to preach and 
expound this thaumaturgical book have never read, 
much less studied it through entire; and a large major- 
ity of those who believe aud follow will confess that 
they have never read it through and of course never 
pretended to study it. This is in extenuation of their 
wrong judgment, not of their presumption. As for 
Joshua's arresting the sun (or the earth), and the whale 
swallowing Jonah, or Jonah swallowing the whale, and 
the midnight darkness and flames of fire in the in term- 



162 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

inable hell, (can darkness exist amid bright and burn- 
ing flames ?), etc., I pass them by as the most incredible 
of all its incredibilia. But because we cannot explain 
or account for them on any known principles of science, 
their acatalapsie or incomprehensibility, is not good rea- 
son that we should utterly reject them, for we do not 
yet know all of nature's philosophy, nor the half; we 
are just entering the ante-chamber, the vestibule, of her 
mighty magnific temple. What is an atom ? Of what 
and how is it composed ? We know its relation to the 
universe is boundless; every atom is regnant in its 
sphere and pregnant in the power oT its influence. 
There is not a jar but shakes the solid globe, and every 
movement makes it tremble in its equipoise; there is 
not a sound but undulates throughout its elastic atmos- 
pheric mantle, and every note vibrates an echo through- 
out this mighty organ. We know, too, that every 
atom is endued with polarities, electricity or magnet- 
ism ; beyond this we know nothing. 

What causes the planets to revolve in ellipses instead 
of circles? I am not ignorant of the accepted theory 
•of centrifugal impulsion and centripetal attraction, al- 
ternately preponderating ; but this, if considered to be 
ypermanent, is fallacious, as could easily be demonstrated 
were it necessary to my subject. But to return, I can 
not believe these marvellous supernatural absurdities 
penned by ignorant men, or perverted by corrupt trans- 
lators and supervenient interpolations, knowing as I do 
know the ignorance, superstition and moral depravity 
of mankind, and especially priestkind. I might as 
well believe the wonderful stories of the "Cid Campea- 
•dor," the " Incomparable Lord " of the Spaniards. A 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 163 

history, if not " sacred," at least as credible by its free- 
dom from the marvellous and unnatural, as the other 
is by its fullness of the same, informs us of his almost 
supernatural victories when alive, and after death and 
burial, the exhumation of his body, placing it upon his 
old war-horse, in front of his army, and leading to 
victory • that a saint came down from heaven to lead 
the Spaniards against the Moors ; that a blazing cross 
lingered in the sky above their contending hosts ; that 
the sun stood still to give them time in the slaughter of 
their enemies, etc. To deny the possibility of a mira- 
cle, past, present, or future, no matter by whom re- 
corded, is not necessarily to deny all the phenomena 
thus invested, or attributed to miracle by the ignorant 
and credulous ; for example, the resurrection of Christ 
after an inhumation of three days, as this comes within 
the possibility of a natural philosophy, whose occult 
elements are now being developed by science ; or his 
instantaneous restoration of sight to the blind, which 
is now frequently done ; or the appearance of the spirit 
of Samuel to Saul, through the witch (medium) of En- 
dor, as this is now a common occurrence, with a patent 
philosophy; or Moses leading the children of Israel 
dry-shod across the Red Sea, as Napoleon Bonaparte 
did the same thing at the same place three thousand 
years later — from a now well-known etesian cause — 
the prevalence of winds from a certain quarter render- 
ing it entirely practicable. Among the wonderful 
works performed by Christ, or rather Jesus, the most 
"miraculous" is that of raising Lazarus from the dead. 
Now, if that could not have been, and if this can not 
now be clone by natural laws and on natural philosophy 



164 PHILOSOPHY OF 1AFE. 

it never was done or performed at all. But it can thus 
be done, and no doubt was performed. Jesus said 
"Lazarus was not dead, but sleepeth." Then when he 
perceived his desciples understood him to mean a nat- 
ural sleep, he corrected this false impression by saying 
" he is dead." As for the remark of Martha that de- 
composition had commenced, having been dead four 
days, it was only her opinion which proved incorrect. 
We have many authenticated cases of this kind on re- 
cord. In the book of Kings it is stated* that Elisha 
raised the dead, the vital functions having been sus- 
pended however but a few hours. 

Rev. Wm. Tennent, Presbyterian clergyman^ of ISTew 
Jersey, lay dead (apparently) for three days and was 
about to be buried, when he revived-.- The wife of Mr. 
Lancaster, first delegate from Washington Territory, 
died (to all appearances) out on the Western plains, and 
was brought on a litter by friendly Indians a distance 
of three hundred, miles to Fort Laramie, occupying 
eight days, when on the completion of preparations for 
her inhumation, she revived and recovered. Hon. Mr. 
Osborne, military secretary to the British Indian mis- 
sion, records a case of an Indian Fakir having lain en- 
tombed ten months, and upon exhumation was resusci- 
tated and restored to life and health. If I am not 
mistaken this author was witness to the whole proceed- 
ing from beginning to end. This cataleptic condition 
of trance, resembling hybernation of animals, in which 
there is a total suspension of all physical and perhaps 
spiritual dynamics, is and has been frequently over- 
come by the power of will, of love, of magnetism, in 
another organism operating upon the unconscious and 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 165 

negative subject ; just as asthma, asphyxia, catalepsy, 
pleurisy, rheumatism, neuralgia, and all diseases both 
acute and chronic, of short or long standing, are now 
frequently cured, and sometimes in a few minutes, when 
all known therapeutic agents of the medical faculty 
have failed ; and also as the most painful and danger- 
ous capital cases in surgery are now performed with 
facility, without pain, and with little hemorage and with 
little inflammation ; all under the wonderful influence 
of magnetism or vital electricity. 

As this involves an important part of the philosophy 
of life, a brief explanation may be necessary, with a 
little deviation from the general system of my subject. 
All the physical functions, and the spiritual faculties 
and the entire vital dynamics of the human machine, 
are dependent on and under the control of magnetism 
or vital electricity ; and as this is in redundancy or de- 
ficiency, so is the character of disease. If not all (as 
contended by some,) a large proportion of our diseases 
originate from an unbalanced or disturbed condition of 
this subtile fluid. As in excess, inflammations fol- 
low, so a want of the proper quantum is followed by 
a want of vital action. This excess is removed or ab- 
stracted by proper manipulations from a perfect and 
harmonic magnetizer, and the process is expedited by 
the application of ammonia, vinegar, or water, as this 
facilitates the passage of the superabundant electricity, 
but not oil, or fat, or grease, as this obstructs. This 
process is illustrated in 'Christ and his Apostles reliev- 
ing the sick " by the laying on of hands," which was 
done for several centuries, and is now a very com- 
mon occurrence. By proper manipulations, I mean 



166 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

making the passes from the deranged point out- 
wards, like magnetizing a piece of metal, for when 
the direction is reversed a contrary result follows. 
When there is a deficiency of this vital force, the 
contact of a positive vigorous magnetizer will 
impart the requisite amount and restore the proper 
vitality, as exemplified in Elisha restoring the sus- 
pended animation of the child apparently dead ; with 
many such cases on record, and also by the force of a 
potent perfect will, as Christ restoring Lazarus, with 
many similar facts well authenticated. 

The splendid and philosophic S. B. Britton, in his 
magnificent work entitled " Man and his Relations/' 
(just published, 1865,) relates from a Memphis paper, 
" A married couple were on their way from New 
Orleans up the river, when the husband sickened 
and died. The bereaved widow landed at Memphis 
with the remains, where she made arrangements for 
the funeral. The form of her bosom friend was 
about to be conveyed to the scene of its final repose, 
but fond affection demanded the privilege of one 
last, lingering look, and accordingly the lid was re- 
moved from the coffin. Bending over the cold and 
apparently lifeless form, she bathed the brow with her 
scalding tears, and fervently kissed the frigid lips. In 
this great struggle love triumphed over death. There 
was one who had "slept" as long, and doubtless as pro- 
foundly, as Lazarus ; but the Divine Spirit that ani- 
mates all things — acting through the mediumship of a 
frail woman — dissolved death's icy chains and set the 
captive free. That man recovered, inspired with new 
energy and gratitude to the Being in whose hand are 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 167 

the issues of life and death." Again from the same 
superb author : " The form of Lazarus was in a per- 
fectly negative state; and a great physical, spiritual 
and divine magnet, in the person and power of Jesus, 
stood at the door of the sepulchre. The powers of the 
Heavens, acting through the concentrated energies of 
his mind and the subtle agents of the natural world, 
established the necessary connection. Virtue descended 
and went oui from Jesus to quicken the lifeless form. 
The vital fluids began to circulate ; the life-giving 
energy was transfused through all the veins amd ar- 
teries ; a subtile, all - communicating spirit ran along 
the avenues of sensation, and the nerves moved like 
the strings of an untuned lyre when they are 
swept by a mighty wind. A loud voice re-echoed 
through the cavern, and the sleeper awoke to walk 
again with the living." How superior is this grand 
philosophy to the blind infidel obstinacy that denies all 
spirituality, past, present, or prospective, or to the weak 
efforts of Ren an, trying to throw doubt on the truth of 
the Christian record. I dispute equally with the pro- 
fessed infidel who would invalidate all spiritual record, 
and with the professed Christian who would make all 
" religion unnatural and all nature irreligious ; " and; 
all those who hear and may again think of me, I hope 
will remember this. 

Moreover, through psychometry, or clairvoyance, or 
clairaudience, or some other means of clear perception, 
more wonderful than, and as well authenticated as 
these, disease is detected and described 5 ,, perceived and' 
prescribed for at a distance of hundreds of miles, with- 
out the least previous knowledge, acquaintance, or hear- 
8* 



168 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

say ; and correctly, too, as is attested by the success, 
when of long and unsuccessful treatment by the old 
profession. But all this is effected through the laws 
of nature — there is no other way to effect anything — 
laws which we are just beginning to find out and un- 
fold. No, (to resume) it is not the facts we deny, unless 
in direct contravention to well known philosophy, but 
the miraculous phase of the facts ; nor are we on the 
other hand necessarily committed to their affirmation.. 
Also, in this connection, the Bible saith somewhere 
(Gen. Jx. 6,) " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man 
shall his blood be shed;" that he who lives by the 
sword shall perish by the sword ; that he who deals 
violence to others, shall himself perish by the hand of 
violence. 

" There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew 
them how we will," said Shakespeare, who, not as a poet, 
but as an acute observer and profound philosopher had 
no superior. I have heard old observant men say they 
have often noticed that a violent man would generally 
die by violence — viewing it as a righteous retribution ; 
and also, that when one member of a devoted circle or 
family dies, others are almost certain to follow very 
soon ; and further, that the most amiable and lovely 
are generally selected by death ; hence the old aphor- 
ism " Death loves a shining mark." I believe this is 
a prevailing opinion, whether derived from the Bible 
or from experience, or from both. If this be true, it 
has a philosophy, but if it has no philosophy it is false; 
whether or not we understand the philosophy is 
another question, Now as excarnated men or angels 
can, and do in certain conditions, influence men in the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 169 

flesh to write in any hand and speak in any tongue, 
and perform any music on any instrumeut, all unknown 
to them, and also move heavy, ponderable bodies, all 
through a proper medium in rapport, isn't it in accord- 
ance with the logic of other analogies and reasonable 
to suppose that the spirit of the murdered man can 
find some unconscious medium through which to retal- 
iate upon his violent murderer yet in the flesh ? or the 
excarnated loved member of a devoted circle find some 
tractable unisonant medium, through whom as an un- 
conscious instrument, to gather up to his own happy 
abode some others of his loved jewels left behind him 
in this plain of sorrows ? This is merely suggested as 
a speculative hypothesis to verify through philosophy 
these old cherished sentiments, and, if true, clear them 
from the mist of miracle. 

The devotees of the Bible say that it is so far above 
and beyond human reason that they cannot pretend: 
to fathom, explicate or understand it; that reason is 
not required, and must have nothing to do^with its ex- 
egesis in determining the question of its reception or re- 
jection ; but, with the deglutition of the anaconda, it 
must be swallowed wholly, soully and bodily as we find: 
it, without mastication of incisor or molar, without con- 
coction of encephalon or viscera, But was not reason 
the cause objectively and' subjectively of all their church 
reformations ? And do they intentionally or ignorantly 
set aside the words of the gentle Jesus, their very God, 
"Why, even of yourselves, judge ye not what is 
right?" (Luke xii.) 

And don't they use reason, or try to use reason, in 
expounding it ? Will they acknowledge no reason iii> 



170 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

their preaching ? And moreover, what is it that makes 
them come to the conclusion to accept it without any 
research of reason ? It is reason that prompts them to 
reject reason. If they reject reason in explaining, why 
accept reason in rejecting? They stultify themselves 
in this whole subterfuge, as indeed they do in every 
other. But, quoth the preacher^ " The Bible is true 
because of the miracles which it records; (reason 
enough to invalidate it in the mind of a philosopher)^ 
"and these miracles are true because the Bible records 
them." The Bible is true because St. Paul says so ; 
and St. Paul is true because the Bible says so. Rev. 
Mr. Mahan, "the intellectual giant/' says, "Every 
reader will agree with us in the assumption that the in- 
corruptible God has never performed and never will 
perform a miracle in attestation of that which is unreal 
or untrue. A religion really and truly attested by di- 
vine miracles must therefore be admitted to be true." 
To which shallow subterfuge Prof. Hare replies : " To 
this very admissable truism, I add that an omnipotent 
and prescient God could not have any occasion to per- 
form miracles in attestation of any thing, since, by the 
premises, his will must be carried out without miracles. 
That any thing should, even for an instant, be contrary 
to his will, is inconsistent with his foresight and om ■ 
nipotency. It would be a miracle that any thing 
counter to his will should exist." 

The next postulate of Mr. Mahan : " No religion 
attested as true by divine miracles can be false !" Was 
this proposition ever impugned ? No one would resist 
the unquestionable dictates of God, however conveyed, 
whether by miracle or any other means. The question 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 171 

is not whether a religion attested by divine miracles 
should be accredited, but whether there were ever any 
miracles, attesting any religion, performed ; and, if so, 
what religion has the peculiar merit of having been 
thus attested ? Millions who believe in other religions 
deride those miracles of revelation which Mr. Mahan 
would adduce; and Protestants do not admit many 
which the Romish church sanctions. For one I deny 
that any miracle has ever been performed with the view 
of attesting any religion wdiatever. No miracle could 
be necessary to attest the will of omnipotence any more 
than to enable a man to wave his hand. But admitting 
that it ever has been necessary, no miracle has ever 
been resorted to for the purpose in question, since none 
has answered the desired end. This would not have 
been the case had miracles been resorted to by prescient 
omnipotence." Another distinguished divine in an 
elaborate effort to vindicate the Bible, commences thus : 
" God forbid that I should depreciate the value of rea- 
son in any of its offices. Reason is God's gift to man,, 
and must be used as God designs. But so is the Bible 
God's gift to man, and must be used as God designs.. 
Two gifts from the same perfect being can not conflict 
with each other," etc. But this is enough — fair speci- 
mens of theological argument and logic, or rather sophis- 
try ; taking for granted at the start the very point in 
dispute, and thus beg the question in the beginning. 
They are disgusting for their want of sense as well as 
want of honesty. I'll prove there is no death, and 
from death itself, and without meanly begging : There's 
nothing certain but death — if is certain sooner or later; 
and there can be no death without first life ; then life 



1*72 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

becomes certain as death ; but if life is certain there 
can be no death, for death cannot ensue without extinc- 
tion of life — therefore there can be no death. This is 
the tergivisation and sophism of logic, without the dis- 
gusting begging of simulating simpletons. They evince 
not even a modicum of the astute dialectic talent of the 
ancient sophist, who, addressing Clinian, asked, "Is 
he who learns wise or unwise? 5 Answer, he is wise. 
But was he not previously ignorant of what he learns? 
Answer, yes. The ignorant therefore learn, Clinian, 
and not the wise as you supposed." 

You may derive any doctrine from the Bible you 
please, and Fll find more than one sect professedly de- 
rived from that same Bible who will deny it. I will 
prove legally and logically from all the numberless 
sects, both orthodox and heterodox, that this whole 
Bible is a tissue of falsehood. It is a jurisprudential 
principle and practice of universal application that a 
larger number can invalidate the testimony of a smaller 
number, all other things being equal 5 . Now, you name 
any sect you please, say Arminian, and Pll find a larger 
number of other sects who pronounce that sect wrong ; 
then name another sect, say Calvinist, and I'll find a 
larger number of other sects including the Arminian, 
who will denounce that ; then name another, and Til 
find a larger number including both the Arminian and 
Calvinist who will denounce them in the same way ; 
and thus continue this process until you have named 
every one of all the sects, and I will thus prove by a 
larger number, that every one of all the sects is wrong, 
and that, too, by these very sects themselves, who are 
all? derived from the Bible and are its professed follow- 



PHILOSOPHY OF tlFE. 1?3 

ers. So that if there is any reliance to be placed in 
this testimony as a rule of evidence and in these large 
numbers of Bible religionists, the Bible and all its 
sects and sectaries are proved utterly fallacious, and by 
these very religionists themselves. 

Again : take any sect, say the Unitarian, and they 
declare that every body and every sect that don't think 
precisely as they do on any cardinal point are infidels,, 
and as all infidels will meet and merit damnation, there- 
fore, everybody else will be damned. Then take any 
other, say the Trinitarian, and they declare the same of 
themselves, that everybody who don't believe as they 
believe, in the absolute divinity of Jesus, for instance, 
is " infidel," and as every infidel is to be damned, of 
course, every body else is done for. Thus continue 
this process, and the whole world will be lost. Thus 
their vicarious God died in vain, man was created in 
vain, and the creative God has failed. All this might 
be called, in legal parlance, cumulative evidence, and 
I think is also competent to the court if not satisfactory 
to the jury. 

This principle, we call " religion/' was originally and 
properly called philosophy — -literally love of wisdom, 
now reason, rationale of phenomena — at a time when 
it was thought to be truly a philosophy ; but after it was 
found to have no philosophy, (appropriately if not thus 
intentionally) the word "religion" was adopted, and cer- 
tainly with great propriety, as far at least as the sig- 
nificance of the word. 

The ancient priests of Egypt, from whom letters and 
civilization have sprung, were men of philosophy, and 
entirely different from the order now designated as 



174 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

priests. The colleges of Thebes, Heliopolis and Mem- 
phis, were the head-quarters of professional and scientific 
men, and bore no sort of similtude or even resemblance 
to onr modern ecclesiastical institutions. It was from 
these colleges the Greek schools derived their science. 
Pythagoras had lived at Thebes, Plato at Heliopolis^ 
and Thales and Democritus at Memphis. 

The word • " religion " is derived from the Latin 
ligo to bind, and religo to rebind, as the priest- 
hood had to bind over and again their credulous and 
obstreperous disciples. The word was used by the Ro- 
mans as a sacred oath to the gods. The w r ord bible is 
from the Greek biblos, originally soft-bark, which the 
ancients used to write upon, and means book. The 
term " holy " was prefixed by the Jews to express ex- 
cellence. Hence, " holy bible " literally means, in the 
original, excellent soft-bark. The books composing 
the Old Testament were written upon soft-bark, palm 
leaves, impressible stones, etc. There were many more 
than are now preserved and acknowleged at the present 
day, as " Wars of the Lord," " Book of Jasher," " Acts of 
Solomon," " Visions of Iddo the Seer," etc. The manu- 
scripts of the Xew Testament, with many more, were col- 
lected about 300 years after Christ. According to Mos- 
heim, who is high, standard authority in the church, 
"Not long after Christ's ascension into heaven, several 
histories of his life and doctrines, full of pious frauds 
and fabulous wonders, were composed by persons 
whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but whose 
writings discovered the greatest superstition and igno- 
rance. According to the "• Unitarian new version, there 
were in these manuscripts upwards of 130,000 readings." 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 175 

Such was the idolatrous adulation paid to the authority 
of Qrigen, who was the origin of the present fashion of 
preaching from a text, and whose superstition drove 
him to commit self-mutilation of such ruinous character 
as to result in emasculation of mental vigor as w T ell, 
that emendations of the text, which were but suggested 
by him, were taken in as part of the New Testament; 
though he himself acknowledged they were supported 
by the authority of no manuscript whatever. Lanfranc 
Archbishop of Canterbury, made many alterations for 
the avowed purpose of accommodating them to the faith 
of the orthodox. In the year 506, "The illustrious 
Messala, being consul by the command of the Emperor 
Anastasius, the holy gospels, as having been written by 
idiot evangelists, are censured and corrected." Accord- 
ing to Davis, and other authors, 2048 bishops assem- 
bled at Nice, in the year 325, under command of the 
Emperor Constantine. During their pious deliberations 
they became so vociferous, obstreperous and violent to- 
ward each other, that Constantine disqualified 1730 
from having a voice in deciding which books were and 
which were not the word of God. The 318 left pro- 
nounced the books which subsequently composed the 
bible, to be the word of God. Since then, however, 
several books have been rejected, such as the " Gospel 
of the Egyptians/'' "Gospel of the Hebrews," "The Gos- 
pel of Perfection," " Gospel of Barnabas," " Epistle of 
Clemens Romanus," of "Ignatius." of "Polycarps," 
etc., " Shepherd of Hennas," "Revelation of Paul," 
" Acts of Peter," " Epistle of Christ," etc. Out of 
fifty gospels then extant, they only retained Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John, the balance, some well written, 



176 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

^ere committed to the flame,?; while the books of James, 
Jude, and the Apocalypse, were entirely rejected. The 
emperor then sanctioned their decision and ordered the 
bible, as then canonized, to be received as the word of 
God. After this, ecclesiastical councils were frequently 
called, and as frequently annulled the decisions of each 
other, until the year 633, at the council of Toledo, the 
rejected books of James, Jude, and Revelation of St. 
John, were incorporated into the sacred canons. As for 
the story of the miraculous cross appearing in the 
heavens over Constantino's head as a sign by which he 
was to conquer, it was manufactured, I opine, specially 
for Constantino and his favors, and probably by the 
very priest who undertook to procure pardon and special 
condonation for his crimes. Constantine himself, it is 
said, became a convert to Christianity because a Pagan 
refused to absolve him from the guilt of murdering his 
own son, (I think,) declaring it impossible to procure 
expiation for so heinous a crime ; but a Christian priest 
readily agreed to do it for him with certainty, celerity 
and facility. 

This easy expiation, howeA T er, may not be so incredi- 
ble, if we believe the able and eminent divine, Dr. Olin, 
(against whom, as he was the warm personal friend of 
my father, and baptised my only sister, it is hardly 
reasonable to suppose I cherish any prejudice) who said 
"there was virtue enough in the blood of Christ to cleanse 
the foulest spot in hell." Did the good doctor bethink 
himself how well he was vindicating the Universalists ? 
or as the Methodists, among whom Olin was a high 
and honored dignitary, delight to call " hell-redemp- 
tionists ! " And yet, mr contra, another prelate, with 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIF3- 1?T 

whom he affiliated, declared the "doctrine of universal 
salvation was repulsive to his moral feelings." Gra- 
cious God ! what moral feeling, for even the breast of a 
barbarian, aye, the lowest order of brute! 

Tn euphemistic (f) parlance, " plain as preaching, now 
means, clear as mud ; and " true as Gospel/' the bur- 
lesque on veracity. Just think of the general deprav- 
ity, duplicity and debauchery of the priesthood and 
self-styled orthodox clergy ; their ignorance, indolence 
and arrogance ; their vanity, venality, hypocrisy and 
passion of all sores ; anger, revenge, lust, lechery and 
tke whole diabolic train that constitute their secret sym- 
posium and carnival of crime ! Few outside of those 
interested in the flesh-pots, and their followers and 
dupes, who make up the menial million without sense 
or soul to know or do, now have any sympathy for 
1- c di grr.iing hieroph antic hierarchy. Hence, the 
rapid growth of modern scepticism and materialism. 
If I speak fearlessly and severely, I speak honestly and 
truly. I will here read from my " Dissertation,-" a 
page or two on this point :■ 

With the hypocritie and hypercritic cant and fine-- 
spun theological abstraction of the day, so rife and ram- 
pant; of bishops an£ baptisms, presbyteries and predes- 
tinations, apostolic succession and secession; Baptistic 
bigotry, Episcopalian arrogance, Presbyterian perti- 
nacity, Methodistic animalism, and Papal apostacy, (of 
course, we speak alone of their prominent peccadiloes), 
all "gentle theologues of calmer kind, who, cold them- 
selves think ardor comes from hell," the author has 
nothing to do ; with plump stall-fed theology he has 
no affinity. For all the high-sounding big brass trum- 



178 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

pets of the times, who issue imperial bulls and pontifical 
ukase, touch the mainsprings of thunder in their Vat- 
ican and fulminate judicial anathemas from their eccle- 
siastical thrones ; for those serio-comic clerical conven- 
tions, yclept conferences, etc., self-constituted congresses 
of governmental policies, judicatories of person and 
property, political dispensaries of law and liberty, alias 
periodic celebrations of sanctimonious saturnalia, con- 
stituting a perfect pandemonium of green spirits and 
blue, black ditto, and so forth ; with all the fats and 
fumes of these boiling cauldrons of evil genii ; who 
,with satanic heart and sacrilegious hand would rend 
in twain a happy civil brotherhood, tear down our 
cherished fabric of freedom and drench the land in 
blood, that themselves, the very hell-hounds, of dis- 
union and civil war may lap the crimson tide, may 
flourish in its flow and revel in its ruin ; for all such 
vile perversion and villainous prostitution, the humble 
writer of these humble pages entertains the deepest 
abhorrence and most ineffable detestation. He has no 
admiration for clerical cravats and clerical conventicles, 
clerical prerogatives and all extra-judicial clerical pre- 
tensions ; no sympathy for thafrproud preaching, pious 
mockery and fashionable folly of the sleek city syco- 
phant, who deals in moral prosing, mental inanity, 
easy essays, pliant ethics and ad captandum vulgus show, 
reflected from strolling ghosts of myth and moonshine. 
ISot on the other hand is he an apologist for the mad 
raving of the ranting vulgarian, who beats his box and 
pulls his pit, frets his hours away, and pretending ex- 
haustion sits down with serene and self-complacent 
countenance; having labored lustily, he thinks faith- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 179 

fully, and enjoys the balance of the week in elegant 
ease among his idolatrous disciples, "whom he never 
teaches because he never learns. 7 ' Again, and some of 
you will doubtless consider it vulgar Brownlowism, or 
worse, diabolical Seecherism, which will perhaps jar 
on more refined ears, as it was written under the in- 
tensity of youthful impulse and ardor, unchastened by 
age ; and you will not expect me to stop now to smooth 
its severity with more polish, inasmuch especially as it 
speaks the truth, though the pen be porcupine dipped 
in fiery lava, contains the jewel though full of flint and 
fire. 

We have seen the stricken soul, perhaps wild and 
wayward, may haps erring and erratic, but high-hearted 
and noble, unfortunate, with soul and exalted nature, 
who like the noble Scaevola, would thrust his arm into 
the burning fire and see it and feel it perish, rather 
than stoop to meanness or falsehood ; who would dis- 
dain a low act as the bird of Jove disdains the mire ; 
soul of impassioned mould and lofty aspirations that 
soared like the eagle of the mountain into the clear 
cerulean ; with no fault but misfortune, no weakness 
but too much trust, no guilt but looking to heaven, no 
crime but devoted love, like the immortal Milton, tra- 
duced, maligned, abused and barked at by human hy- 
enas of sacerdotal sanctity with eyes that roll in holy 
horror at the aberrations of erratic love and pure devo- 
tion — the little pecadilloes perchance of others — who 
should have poured the oil of healing, and who will 
themselves, according to their own theory and practice, 
roll another horror te the billowed thunders of devil's 
daily dirge, and cast a shadow over the regions of the 



180 PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 

damned like embodied midnight. We have seen the 
innocent, the injured, and the pure, torn down with 
pharisaic friendship and satanic soul by falsehood's 
forked tongue of demoniac traduction — by the vile and 
villainous preacher who, under the assumed sanctitude 
of the Prince of peace, , would scent out the victim of 
misfortune and urge on his hell-hounds of carrion to 
their feast of devils — obsequious simpletons, who would 
howl when their master hissed — 'incarnated spirits of 
distilled iniquity, whose souls, if they have any, will 
make black spots in helPs darkest midnight — -spots 
that the roil of ages will not efface, and the darkness 
of the damned will be sunshine to their spirits, deep 
and dark enough to extinguish the light of a thousand 
suns. 

Voracious vampires of the htimaii soul and venal 
vermin of society; with no feeling but self, no God but 
gold, no principle but hypocrisy, no object but self- 
emolument, no glory but the misfortune of others, no 
ambition but to pander to the powerful, and no certain 
hope but certain hell ; that prowl in the midnight of 
character, and feast and fatten on the misfortune oi 
others; ulcerous sores that eat at the vitals of society; 
the utter abhorrence of God and angels; the deep de- 
testation of pure, enlightened men; we loathe, we spurn, 
we *pity them. 

But, poor vermin ! the venom of your depraved 
spirits will be purged away under God's great law of 
progression. The black Hades or hell you preach and 
which you practice, and to which you would doubtless 
consign me for eternal duration, is, thank God for you, 
only eviternal, not sempiternal as you proclaim. The 



PIMLOSOPHY OF LIFE. I Si 

"grand economy of progression will lift even you from 
this eviternal Geheuna, and will make your black 
spirits ultimately blossom with charity and love. Such 
I would have you, and the God I serve will do more 
than I can wish— different from your God ? who^wouldj 
if adjudicating your practices by the standard of your 
precepts, damn you forever in hell's hottest abysmal 
ocean of fire, fury and flame. But no» I hope to see 
in future centuries — it will require centuries— -the fruit 
of angel love growing up out of your present black 
and bitter ashes* By ihe perfect optimism of Provi- 
dence, which is nature, the doors of Paradise are ever 
open to you and to all. This lecture may be heard 
by other auditories, to many of whom it will be 
like the pearl to the swine, to some a true picture of 
their depravity; and to others and by far the greatest 
number, I hope, a comfort and a consolation if not a 

After this rapid retrospect of religion and its vota- 
ries, its foundation and their practices, we might w T ell 
and solemnly exclaim in the language of the poet, 

" Gre:U God! on what a slender thread 
Hang everlasting things !" 

But, after all, perhaps it is the best religion to hold 
in check the evil of the ignorant, and please the feel- 
ings of the vindictive) for the Deity and religion of a 
man always assimulate to the plane of his feelings and 
perceptions. It is natural for the cruel, tyranic, puri- 
tanic and vindictive natures to believe in and worship 
a cruel, tyranic, and vindictive God — and those who 
heartily believe in such a God cannot be otherwise, for 
the God whom they thus invest is but the mirror of 
their character : given the attributes of the God wor- 



182 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

shipped, and the character of his worshippers appears' 
in a mirror ; or given the character of the worshippers, 
and the" attributes of their God will assimilate to their 
plane : it is not only natural, as I said, but it is as im- 
possible for such natures to have any other sort of God 
as it is for a carniverous animal to desire any other sort 
of food but flesh, or for God himself to contravene his 
own laws and work a miracle. 

And perhaps, too, as the followers of Moses could 
not appreciate the improvement of the Christian dis- 
pensation, so the followers of Christ can not appreciate 
the present philosophic apocalypse, or apocalyptic phi- 
losophy. It also furnishes convenient occasions for the 
vain city belle to see and be seen; and the only occa- 
sion for the unsophisticated country damsels and their 
beaux to gratify their gregarious propensities, as well 
as also a fitting field for the display, of the aged, ambi- 
tious and dignified laity, to become great in church if 
not in State. And popular revivals, while they prove 
an interesting show for the youth of precocity and pro- 
cacity, for the city sap-head or country clod-hopper, 
disclose a wonderful phase of human nature for the 
profound study of the profoundest philoso|3her. Truly 
religion has become the synonym of superstition, nnd 
priest and pontif, prelate and preacher, the very proto- 
types of prostitution. 

Now in view of all the facts and truths I have pre- 
sented, especially considering the great developments 
of late scientific research in the domain of mind, the 
universal ethereal medium through which mind acts 
upon mind at any distauce and without any obstruction, 
when minds are in rapport with each other, is it not a 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 183 

wonder that deceased spirit-friends, if they be really liv- 
ing, do not thus communicate with some of us in the flesh, 
with whom they may come in rapport? Isn't it a 
wonder that excarnaled human spirits don't see and 
communicate with us incarnated spirits through this 
same universal electro-ethereal medium through which 
we communicate with one another on this rudimental 
earth plane ? When men in the flesh have learned to 
use this mystic medium by putting themselves in and 
assuming that necessary negative condition of perfect 
passivity and receptivity, is it not a wonder that those 
out of the flesh, if still in existence, do not then mani- 
fest themselves to us through this same medium of the 
many millions on both sides of such varioas electric 
temperaments? And when we also consider that some 
in all ages of mankind have had such mysterious man- 
ifestations without understanding them, is it not a won- 
der indeed that our spirit friends in the spirit spheres 
do not now manifest ^themselves intelligibly to us with 
our present progressed facilities, as we have learned the 
lightning and lettered its sheets, and thus attest our 
immortality and their felicity? The science of mind 
and electricity has reached that point that we must ex- 
pect — -nay, must have— such communications from our 
friends who have gone before, or else conclude forever 
that they live no more. For spirit here can now com- 
municate with spirit unimpeded by flesh, distance or 
any other obstacle ; and some of those eliminated spirits 
who have left the body can communicate through the 
same universal medium to some of us yet in the body 
in unison with them ; therefore if they do not now 
communicate we are bound to believe they live no more. 
9 



184 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

but died and perished with their bodies. But cease 
these wonders, dry your tears, dispel your doubts, lin- 
ger no longer your patient expectations, for list! ye 
tenants of the tomb ! Hear it, and feel a new glory 
thrill your vital being of your mortal body, ye prisoned 
spirits of the mouldering urn! The glorious truth 
and the glorious proof of your immortal life and im- 
mortal love, hath sounded its glorious symphonies upon 
your sombre shores ! The glorious reality has come. 
The mighty and momentous truth in lights of supernal 
splendor has blazed upon the world. Just at the time 
when science leads us to look for it and must have it, 
or bury our hopes and loves in the grave forever, the 
grand and glorious fact comes careering on the wings 
of the wind, aye, on the lightning's pinion, with angelic 
anthems. And O what a fact! what a truth! is this 
we have learned in our favored nineteenth century! 
Every pulsation of our corporeal, and every vital vi- 
bration of our spiritual heart, should beat throughout 
the infinite future, glory to our Creator. 

That was a grand event in the pages of the past, 
when Columbus pictured a new and unknown continent 
ton the map of the world ; but this new continent, like 
the old, is filled with the bitterness of death and blasted 
,hopes. That was a proud period for man when the 
.printing press leaped forth from the mind of Faust and 
'Guttenberg to spread knowledge broadcast among the 
nations and render her springs imperishable ; but its 
reflected lights never reached beyond the dim horizon 
: around us. 

That was an epoch in the chronology of time when 
'Christ stood forth and proclaimed immortal life to the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 185 

good and true ; but he only proclaimed the truth and 
left the world still in the darkness of doubt, xlnd that 
was sublime when he illustrated his life in his glorious 
death, and was lost to mortal vision in the brightness 
of his empyreal sphere; but the splendor of his illus- 
tration grows dim in the distance, and the glory of his 
ascension is believed by few and known to none. But 
all these grand events and epochs of the past grow pale 
before the luminous effulgence of this new risen sun 
of science which is now illuminating the world of 
mind; they sink into insignificance beside the gathered 
glories of this new apocalypse which is brightening 
into bliss the sorrows and sufferings of earth's dying 
children. Not with meek proclamation, nor proud 
preaching, nor pompous declamation on futile faith ; 
but, based on philosophy, with absolute demonstration 
and certainty of science, this grand and mighty truth 
so long dark, dormant and unknown, has leaped into 
light, life and knowledge, and already warms the hearts 
of its enlightened millions, soothing their sorrows, eas- 
ing their agonies, and binding the glory of immortality 
around their love. 

You remember I brought the history of unknown 
spirit intercourse of the past down to the present genera- 
tion : here now I again take it up for a moment to glance 
at the living age. Spirit intercourse and its true philos- 
ophy are now known and believed in by many millions 
of the present generation, including the most eminent 
and enlightened minds of the world — in fact, no others 
can have a perfect intellection of its philosophy — many 
of whom not only believe but know, not from high- 
wrought feeling of excitement, intense orgasm, or 



xou PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

contagious sympathy which religious converts experi- 
ence, but with the cool, positive demonstration of 
science and absolute knowledge. We will give a few 
distinguished names, as you perceive T illustrate and 
prove as I go : Hon. N. P. Tallmadge, Ex-Governor 
of New York and formerly United States Senator; 
Judge Edmonds, who served in the Senate of New 
York and was a Judge in its Supreme Court, who as 
certainly and consciously holds daily intercourse with 
his excarnated as with his incarnated friends ; Professor 
Hare, one of the most profound and scientific men the 
world has ever produced, and member of various 
learned societies, who being a materialist and unbeliever 
in immortality invented an ingenious contrivance with 
which to disprove and refute the so-called spirit mani- 
festations, but which converted him and proved its 
truth — thus making him a happy man with certain 
prospect of immortal life, without the shadow of incer- 
titude; and Brittan, Tiffany, Harris, Dexter, Fergu- 
son, Newton, the venerable Dods who wrote a book to 
show that all the phenomena of spirit intercourse were 
nothing more nor less than the illusions of his favorite 
electrical psychology ; but was finally forced by demon- 
strative evidence to renounce his specious theory and 
embrace the fact of spirit existence and spirit inter- 
course; and a host of others in talents as well as num- 
bers — representative men of the world — lawyers, doc- 
tors, divines of eminence in America, beside many of 
the most learned in England, France, Germany, etc., 
among whom, I believe, are Lord Brougham, Louis 
Napoleon, etc., securely and serenely moored in this 
glorious haven opened up by modern science. Jew and 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 187 

Gentile, Christian-, Infidel and Pagan, Moslem and 
Giaour, and all creeds alike may come within the pur- 
view of this glorious evangel, and all earth's children 
may come and lay their various offerings on this uni- 
versal altar of philosophy. I will now endeavor to 
explain this philosophy, and with as much brevity as 
possible — if such an expression will bear the critic's 
scrutiny. And I can not hope to make, nor ought you 
to expect a lucid exposition ; for my experience among 
you as a public speaker has been in polemic discussion 
on current political topics, with some of our most tal- 
ented orators and distinguished^politicians, whose genius 
would contribute to illume the way, not difficult with- 
out them; which is very different from a lecture on a 
new, abstruse and metaphysical philosophy — especially, 
too, as this is my first effort in this field, and I may 
add will probably be my last. For I can assure you 
it is greatly more difficult than a political discussion, 
which is, the easiest per fori nance within my knowledge, 
except modern homiletic sermonising and romance 
writing, all for the simple millions. I think I have said 
enough to free me from the charge of one sin at least, 
that of pandering for the praise of priest or preacher, 
and all priest-ridden people and the entire clerical cur- 
riculum. 

Now as one mind in the body in a positive condition 
of electricity can perceive and influenceanother mind 
in the body in a negative condition of electricity, both 
in rapport with each other, and all this without the 
use of any of the corporeal senses ; so a spirit out of 
the body in a positive condition of electricity can per- 
ceive and influence a spirit or mind in the body in a 



188 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

negative condition and both in rapport, independent of 
physical organism in both cases. This electricity, from 
the Greek for amber, (a resinous substance), in which 
it was first discovered by the great Thales of Miletus, 
twenty-five hundred years ago, be it remembered, is an 
universally diffused, subtile, imponderable and myste- 
rious agent and element of mind and matter. Some 
of us are in this negative impresssible condition natu- 
rally ; all of us may become so by practice and perse- 
vering effort. All such, whether natural or acquired, 
are called mediums, (properly, perhaps the plural 
should be media, according to the Latin idiom). 
Through a progressed and practiced medium — for we 
progress and attain proficiency in this as in everything 
else — a spirit or angel formerly of the flesh, but now 
in the spirit-world round about us, can speak, write, or 
perform what would be called miracles, or attributed 
to conjuration, prestigiation, necromancy, sorcery, leger- 
demain, jugglery, witchcraft, humbug, demonism, elec- 
tricity, or odylic force, by the ignorant or wicked. 
They are made to speak in tongues entirely unknown 
to the medium, such as Hebrew, Greek, French, Ital- 
ian, etc. ; and write in the precise hand of others,, de- 
ceased and unknown to them. They are made to per- 
form in the most masterly manner on the piano, flute, 
guitar, and other instruments to which they were per- 
fect strangers, and execute pieces of music of which 
they know nothing. But the easiest and most elemen- 
tary though not the surest and most satisfactory way 
for the unprogressed and inexperienced medium is 
through some convenient, simple, ponderable substance, 
as a table or chair. That a table raps, tips, without 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 189 

the application of adequate force, is strange; that a 
table moves up through the air, without the application 
of any visible force whatever, is still more strange ; 
that the raps, tips, and movements of a table should 
convey intelligence and indicate the presence of some 
other mind, becomes mysterious and vastly interesting ; 
and that this intelligence thus conveyed should indicate 
thoughts, opinions, feelings, different from and contrary 
to all those present, showing it .to be not the mere mes- 
meric or psychologic reflex of others in the flesh, is 
more mysterious and interesting still, and absolutely 
inexplicable upon any known principle or imaginable 
hypothesis, except that invariably avowed by the author 
of the intelligence itself, to-wit : the excarnated spirit 
that has passed the portal of dissolution. This table- 
intelligence, communicating through the raps or tips of 
the table, is the A B C of spirit intercourse. For in- 
stance, have it understood that one rap shall mean yes, 
two no, etc., or call the letters of the alphabet, either 
orally or mentally, and whenever the proper letter is 
called to spell out what the spirit wishes to communi- 
cate, the table will rap. This is the first and most sim- 
ple but not most certain mode of intercommunication 
between the two states of existence. The experienced, 
progressed, and proficient mediums have an internal, 
direct mental communication, independent of the tem- 
poral or physical sensorium, and thus see and feel and 
converse with their spirit friends through this mystic 
medium of mentality, with as much certainty and celer- 
ity as with their friends in the flesh, and much more 
interest, satisfaction and pleasure. You know that in 
electricity two positive conditions repel, as well as the 



190 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

negatives repel, each other ; but the positive and nega- 
tive attract each other. All creations, from the most 
infinitessimal inorganic atom to man, the highest devel- 
opment of the earth-plane, and no doubt throughout 
the solar, stellar and all astronomic creations, are en- 
dowed with two principles of electricity, positive and 
negative, or opposite magnetic polarities, the similar of 
which repel and the. dissimilar attract each other ; or 
endowed with two opposite sexes, positive and neg- 
ative, the dissimilar of which, like the other electric 
principles, have an affinity for each other — the Iho and 
Hohi, the male and female, and the Elohi and Eloho, 
the good and evil principle of the ancient Gymnaso- 
phists. One person in the positive condition of elec- 
tricity can perceive and influence another person in 
the negative to him, when in rapport with each 
other and all their conditions harmonious, regard- 
less of intervening clothes, flesh, brick-walls, or dis- 
tance. This is effectuated through the all-pervading, 
omnipresent, universal element or agent that permeates 
every atom as well as all space — there is really no va- 
cant space, for this element fills up all that might seem 
such — an extremely attenuated and refined electricity 
or subtle fluid which we call electro-ether, which we 
can not perceive through our physical senses any more 
than we can see sound, hear light, or feel either, or 
taste, smell, or in any other sensual way perceive mag- 
netism. Xow in just this way, through this agent, 
this great nerve-power of the universe, excarnated men 
communicate with incarnated men. Here is the phi- 
losophy in nucc. The receptive medium, isolated from 
all surroundings, is negative to and comes in rapport 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 191 

with the excarnated spirit, who then controls and uses 
the physical organism of the medium at will, just as 
the psychological operator controled and used the per- 
sons I have already described. But I will explain 
more in extenso. And it is due to say that much of this 
philosophy I get from the learned and legal mind of 
Tiffany, the erudite and recondite Professor Hare, and 
the clear and practical Mr. Putnam, all whose works 
on spiritualism I can truly recommend ; and from Par- 
ker's " Natural Philosophy," (should be called physi- 
cal, for all philosophy is natural,) from Youmans, 
Dods, and others not necessary here to mention, as I 
quote from none without due credit. 

Why are these certain conditions necessary, you ask ? 
If it can be done by one excarnated to one incarnated, 
why not by all the former and to all the latter ? I ask 
in return, why not thus among men in the flesh, in 
mesmerism, clairvoyance, psychology ? But we know 

is not : only by and to certain persons in certain con- 
ditions. And this is in strict accordance with all the 
known analogies of nature. In all its elemental ope- 
rations nature is very exact and specific. Eight parts 
of oxygen and one of hydrogen, by weight, or one of 
oxygen to two of hydrogen by measure, and no other- 
proportions will make pure water. The seed will not 
germinate except in certain conditions of heat and 
moisture ; the lightning will not leap forth except in 
certain conditions of positive and negative. It is only 
on certain and propitious conditions that the human, 
race is elaborated and perpetuated. Why does it re- 
quire a metalic wire instead of a tow-string to make a 
telegraph? And why has that wire to be insulated 
9* 



192 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

from all other conductors? just as the spirit medium 
has to be isolated from all other distractions ? And 
hear what the wise man of the Bible says on this 
point, who wrote as if he fully understood it : " There 
is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the 
spirit.** (Ecc. viii.) And Jesus showed himself not 
to all, but only a few chosen witnesses, etc. (Acts x.) 
Eapport is a French word, and is denned relation or 
affinity. I use it to mean a peculiar nervous affinity or 
congenial mental sympathy. I may come into rapport 
with you by bringing my nerve system into harmony 
with yours and yours with mine. In this condition — 
if I am in the negative — if you have a pain any where, 
I will feel the same pain the same where. This is the 
principle of spiritual inspiration. Two strings of equal 
length, size, kind and tension will both vibrate together 
in perfect unison if but one is touched and sounded by 
the hand ; it will communicate its vibration through the 
intervening atmosphere to the other, and thus cause it 
to vibrate in perfect unison with itself. This is har- 
mony. Again, it is said that two strings equal in every 
respect except that one is fixed permanently and the 
other so strung as to be capable of yielding, when the 
fixed one is constantly vibrated, the other receiving 
these vibrations through the air will, after a while, 
adapt itself to the same and vibrate in unison. We 
know that the strings of a violin, when kept constantly 
in tune, will sound and accord much better than when 
left in a contrary condition ; and also that one sound, 
as of thunder for example, will effect the glass, another 
the window frames, another the house, etc., varying not • 
in volume and power, but in some other peculiarity^ 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 193 

and seeming to receive ready response from those 
objects only which are in unison in this peculi- 
arity. It is said that fine sand spread in a thin 
layer over a thin sheet of membrane drawn tightly 
over a wine glass, will form regular lines and figures 
with astonishing celerity , varying with the sound. Sir 
Isaac Newton discovered that the prismatic rays of 
light correspond in perfect harmony with the diatonic 
scale of music. And see the various effects of music 
upon men. In some it excites a martial ambition; in 
others a sweet serenity ; in yet others and by far the 
greatest number, it excites mirth and hilarity, and 
sfarts the feet instinctively to dancing ; in me, if you 
will excuse the egotism — and so in others, no doubt, — 
it stirs my eloquence, if I have any, at least it makes 
me feel eloquent, and excites a desire to stand before a 
large concourse of enlightened men, and pour out my 
full feelings in a stream of impassioned words on some 
sublime subject. Much is due to the character of the 
music, I admit, in exciting these various emotions; but 
more to the character of the mind or subject. A cer- 
tain kind of music will arouse one person, and a differ- 
ent kind another; but all will be touched or stirred in 
the predominating characteristic. This again is har- 
mony, and harmony is a fundamental, if not the funda- 
mental principle of the universe. Pythagoras, twenty- 
three centuries ago, saw this ; and believed the spheres 
made musie in their revolutions; and by the way this 
illustrious and illuminated man not only first discovered 
the circulation of the blood, as Fve already stated, but 
was the first who taught the immortality of the soul,, 
under the appellation and theory of metempsychosis* 



194 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

though he lived cotemporaneous with some of the later 
prophets. He also founded the Confederacy of Cro- 
tona — the perfect utopia and model of human happi- 
ness and human government. . We also know that the 
magnetic ileedle when allowed to rest with the proper 
polar point to the north will remain more true and 
reliable than when left in any other position. Thus, 
also, if a straight bar of soft iron be held in a nearly 
vertical position, with the lower end deviating to the 
north, and struck several times with a hammer, it will 
acquire the properties of a magnet ; and if the iron 
be pure and soft and the experiment repeated, it will 
become thoroughly magnetised ; but soft iron will not 
retain the magnetism like hard or impure iron, of 
which consists the permanent native magnet. Mag- 
netism is another form of electricity, the similar prop- 
erties of which repel, and the dissimilar attract each 
other. From these illustrations we may derive one 
reason for the rapid proficiency of practiced mediums 
over those out of practice, or out of tune, or not in the 
proper harmonic condition ; and also analogical demon- 
stration of mediumistic educability. The powers of a 
medium, like those of a magnet, are impaired or lost 
by disuse; and as heat weakens or destroys the powers 
of a magnet, so it does those of a medium. In con- 
nection with this let us remember that electricity itself 
is cold. The chemical result of fire on combustible 
substances as for. instance when lightning strikes and 
sets fire to a tree, is caused by intense mechanical fric- 
tion, like the instantaneous and powerful impact of a 
cannon ball. This subtle and tremendous agent pos- 
sesses both mechanical and chemical powers, physically, 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 195 

and mental or spiritual power metaphysically, or at 
least is an agent of the latter. And as nothing affects 
the magnet but those things for which it has an affin- 
ity; so nothing affects a medium but those spirits for 
whom it has an affinity. And further, as nothing is 
impervious to the penetration or prevents the flow and 
action of magnetism, so nothing is impervious to the 
penetration or prevents the flow and action of the elec- 
tro-spirit-ether. This mesmeric magnetism is destined 
yet to develop more startling wonders in the grand 
economy of creation. You should not be astonished 
at my assertion that there is a galvanic, mesmeric, (so 
called because discovered by Galvani and Mesmer), 
magnetic, electric, ethereal medium of spirit pervading 
our entire planetary system, and probably solar system, 
and perhaps all systems, when I inform you that 
according to Farraday, the variations of our magnetic 
needle correspond with the variations of the spots in 
the sun ; that the periodicity of both these variations 
has become a visible fact; both increase or decrease 
together, embracing a period of ten years; thus estab- 
lishing solar, stellar and terrestrial magnetism in mutual 
and reciprocal connection. All these subtile refined 
media move by undulatory, vibratory, or pulsatory 
wave movement, as light, sound, heat, electricity, the 
magnetic polarization with which all bodies and atoms 
are endowed: and just so moves our nervous fluid 
through which mind operates upon mind in or out of 
the flesh ; and just so moves the vital current of our 
animal organism. 

Then when my nerve fluid vibrates in unison with 
yours, as two musical strings in accord, we are in rap- 



196 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

port with each other. This is spiritual harmonic uni- 
son. The operator in mesmerizing his subject becomes 
positive to the subject, and will succeed as soon as he 
comes into rapport with him, in unisonant nervous 
vibration, and never before. Just so with the excar- 
nated spirit and earthly medium, the latter being neg- 
ative and receptive, quiescent and plastic, completely 
subject to the positive will of the spirit. Some of us 
are naturally in this condition to some other person 
either in or out of the flesh ; all may become so by 
proper effort — not effort of positive energetic action, 
but of calm, quiescent, confiding condition of pure, 
sincere desire of good. This is the condition of prayer, 
Not to inform or dictate to God, to change his mind, 
his will, his laws, or in any way interfere with his 
plans or his providence; for it is simply impious and 
ridiculous to attempt it. Nor can the Deity thus vio- 
late his own laws or "nature of things" and gratify 
our ignorant and selfish petitions, for God can not lie 
Bui> in fervent silence and sincerity, in negative and 
receptive condition of feelings, with exalted aspirations 
for the good and the true, with all the outside world 
and its selfish animalities shut out from the soul, and 
thoughts and desires lifted up after higher spheres, 
some pure spirit from those higher spheres in sympa- 
thetic unison, will come and comfort us and enlighten 
and lift us up and communicate through the mystic 
medium of inspiration. This is true prayer, and 
"availeth much." If we would have the influx of 
inspiration from pure spirits we must become pure our- 
selves; we must bring ourselves up to this high plane 
that higher angels may reach us. You know the direc- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 197 

tion was not to go into the public places and do tall 
talking and big blowing, but retire in the silence and 
sincerity of the soul, lifting up fervent aspirations for 
higher influences. The reason Moses was not taught 
and elevated as was Socrates and the man of Nazareth 
to return good for evil, is because he did not occupy 
the high plane of inspiration. In the words of Tiffany, 
" Paul, Peter, John, etc., were not equal to their mas- 
ter because they had not attained his elevated condi- 
tion of natural harmonic development ; had they occu- 
pied his pure plane, God could have communicated to 
them as well as to their teacher; and it would not have 
been necessary for them to have a middle man to come 
between them and God. When you have risen to this 
plane of communication, the communication is internal. 
You have no outward form of expression because you 
have the thought itself by inspiration. In the lan- 
guage of the apostle, God writes his language in your 
understandings and in your affections. All communi- 
cations with the spiritual world, proceeding according 
to this law, each man's communication will be accord- 
ing to his plane ; if in the low plane of lust, his com- 
munications will be of that character ; if in love, his 
communications will be of that character. But even 
the lowest, by putting himself in the condition of 
prayer, by aspiring for the good and the holy, by put- 
ting up earnest petitions for aid, will always find a 
spirit near to sustain and elevate him." Generally, men 
will pray when there is need for it ; it is as natural to 
invoke the help of higher and purer powers when we 
require it, as it is to call for food when hungry. Gen- 
erally, I say, but not invariably, for exceptional cases 



198 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

occur here as well as in all of nature's operations. As 
a morbid condition of the physical system sometimes 
feels no hunger when the system requires food, and at 
others craves food when it is not required, so in 
the morbid condition of a sin-seared man ; he feels 
not the disposition of praying for superior help when 
he really needs it, and in others prays intensely for 
supernal aid when he is guilty of no heinous sin and 
no such supervenient help is needed. To continue the 
philosophy. 

Continuous interposing media- are necessary for all 
communication. My present communication to you is 
through the physical atmosphere which conveys the 
sound of my words to your organs of hearing. I might 
also make pantomimic representations or communica- 
tions through the continuous interposing medium of 
light, transmitting them from me to your organs of 
sight. So also it is with the nerve medium. If I would 
communicate my mental impressions to you without 
using any of the consensual agencies there must be a 
nervous or mental medium continuous and interposing 
to transmit my thoughts to your perceptions, indepen- 
dent of physical media in either me or you. In my 
physical form I am present to your perceptions through 
the undulations of light to your visual organs, and the 
vibrations of sound from my voice through the physi- 
cal atmosphere. I have but this one form, and yet 
there are four or five hundred, or as many of my forms, 
or images of my form, as there are minds here to per- 
ceive it. If there were ten thousand persons present 
there would be as many representatives of me. There 
is a difference then between the form itself and that 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 199 

which represents the form. The media through which 
you become conscious of my presence, are omnipresent. 
I am not omnipresent but that which represents me is. 
The perception of all existence external to conscious- 
ness is by representation. I will read from a philo- 
sophical work entitled " Spiritualism explained," but a 
more appropriate title would be The New Philosophy: 
" Did I wish to communicate with a spirit, who has un- 
folded in him a spirit -consciousness, which can be ad- 
dressed in any other way than through the physical eye 
or ear or touch, and being so divested of this physical 
form that my mind comes in absolute, contact with this 
spirit-medium which permeates all space, and which 
internally and spiritually corresponds to light external 
and physical, and passes through bodies opaque to 
light — then my spirit form acts upon the spirit medi- 
um which is not impeded by this wall, but which passes 
through it as light through transparent glass, carrying 
my image with it. We say that glass is transparent, 
because light passes freely through it, and brings the 
image of that which it would represent. We see an 
individual or tree [images?] coming freely through the 
glass into the room. Now if we have a medium 
which will pass as freely through a board, then that 
board is as transparent to that medium as glass is to 
light. The magnetic medium by which the magnetic 
needle is influenced, passes freely through a board even ; 
therefore to that medium the board is as transparent as 
glass is to light. It is also well to understand that this 
nerve medium, as well as the spiritual medium corre- 
sponding to the mind — which is to the mind what the 
medium of light is to the eye — passes freely through 



200 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

these opaque bodies. Therefore the individual brought 
in contact with this medium will see spirit existences, 
not by their presence in the consciousness, but by that 
which represents the presence there. Hence it is that 
the clairvoyant (when you have proceeded with your 
manipulation until you have insulated the mind, or 
brought it into clear rapport with this spiritual medium 
or atmosphere so that he sees by the spiritual sight and 
hears with the spiritual ear, and no longer sees with the 
physical eye or hears with the physical ear) comes in 
contact with this spiritual medium, and can look out 
into another room and tell what is transpiring, who is 
there, etc., just as we can look through glass and tell 
what we see. The principle is precisely the same. The 
medium by which he perceives things in another room 
freely permeates or passes through the intervening 
walls ; so that although my spiritual form is still in 
this body, yet it is actually exerting its influence on 
this spiritual medium throughout the world — through- 
out not only this world, but throughout the solar sys- 
tem. [Our author doubtless means our planetary sys- 
tem, consisting of the planets revolving directly around 
our sun; including the latter; which is different from 
our solar system consisting of a system of suns includ- 
ing ours, etc.] 

"Wherever this spiritual medium extends, this spir- 
itual image of mine is taken and carried out through 
that medium, just as my physical image is carried out 
through the medium of light ; and who ever comes 
into rapport with that spirit-medium and influence, and 
undulates to the same motion, will perceive that form. 
Hence coming into the clairvoyant condition, I being 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 201 

in New York, may see a person in London or Pekin, 
if it so happen that the undulation of my mind on this 
medium be such as to harmonize with that of the indi- 
vidual in London or Pekin— not that his spirit is per- 
sonally here present, or my spirit personally present 
there, (but I am here in my spirit consciousness and he 
there in his spirit consciousness), but because his image 
as well as mine is here and there and every wdiere else. 
The idea that my mind goes to London, or his comes 
here, is altogether a misconception. I perceive that 
individual in London, not by his absolute presence, but 
by that which represents that presence here ; just as I 
see you, not by your presence in my mind, but by that 
which represents your presence there. I am looking on 
this congregation, and therefore the person seeing me 
sees me surrounded by this congregation. He does not 
see you, but since you are in my mind, your image goes 
with mine. The person coming into rapjwrt with me, 
sees you as your image exists in my mind. If any one 
doubts this law, I am ready to be questioned. Bring 
up any case you please, either from the temporal or 
spiritual world, and I will show that this is the law. 
It is a fallaceous idea that spirits can not communicate 
without being actually present and any other place at 
the same time. They can be present whenever there is 
a mind in rajpport with them to see that presence. 

"People talk about their being so rapid in their pas- 
sage from here to Boston or London, etc. This is all 
explained when you understand the law of manifesta- 
tion. c Why are not all mediums? 7 ' Why can not 
all get communications, and at all times V etc. If we 
wish to get a communication we must conform to the 



202 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

conditions required by the law ; and if we do not con- 
form to these conditions God himself could not give it 
to us. The laAvs of manifestation and communication 
are as fixed and immutable as God's own being. I was 
once one of those things called mediums, and am now 
perhaps to some extent. When I was partially asleep 
there would be very loud raps, and if you could come 
in without waking me up you might get a communica- 
tion, and it has ever been so when I am peculiarly quiet 
mentally, but the moment I rouse up and ask questions 
I can get no reply. There are others who require ex- 
actly opposite conditions, whose bodies are too active 
for their minds, in whose presence you can get rappings 
by reducing the action of the body. But change them 
from that point, the manifestation ceases. There are 
others who in the normal state seem to comply with all 
the conditions necessary ; that is whose vital and ner- 
vous systems are the same ; but you stir or excite them 
any way, and the manifestations cease, simply because 
there is no harmonic action between the mental and 
physical systems. Persons boast, at iimes, of being 
able to destroy the pow r er of mediums ; but nothing 
could be simpler, for a powerful battery may have its 
action stopped by lifting out the connecting wire. It 
is often the case that the entrance of a person into a 
circle where manifestations are occurring causes their 
discontinuance, and the person is perhaps astonished to 
think the spirits should be so contrary. It was simply 
because he had come in and violated the conditions by 
which they could manifest. He had, so to speak, dis- 
turbed one of the plates of the battery. One class of 
individuals in the sphere of lust — in what Ave call the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 203 

low and polluted plane— can not come into rapport with 
those occupying a higher plane. ( There is an impassa- 
ble gulf between them.' It is useless to open doors or 
windows for spirits to enter, for a door is as transpa- 
rent to the medium by which they are represented as a 
pane of glass is to the medium of light. % Jesus ap- 
peared in the midst of his disciples though they were 
shut up; and when the time came for his disappear- 
ance, he ceased to be seen not by going out of the door 
or window, but by disturbing the conditions by which 
he was represented to their consciousness. In respect 
of spirit mansions, etc., in the spiritual world, we are 
very liable to mistake representation for actuality. We 
are very liable to mistake images of things- — crea- 
tions, so to speak, proceeding from the minds of the 
spirits — for actualities. We are very apt to perceive 
animals. Some think that animals have a living form 
and exist in the spiritual world; but I pretend to say 
it is not true. 1 know very well how they appear there. 
I know very well, how it is that persons suppose they 
do exist, and why spirits in the spiritual world appear 
to have their dogs, cats— their pet animals. The con- 
dition of immortality cannot pertain to the mere ani- 
mal being.. The representations of animals, forests, 
fields and things of this kind, have no basis upon that 
which has a material or actual existence in the universe. 
They are only developed under the law of representa- 
tion. If you will only investigate the law of repre- 
sentation, you will have no difficulty in accounting for 
these things in the spiritual world." 

Again : "When I go to the spirit world, I must take 
that with me of which I must be conscious, else I shall 



204 I PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

not take my individuality with me — else T become anni- 
hilated. Just to the extent I leave my affections be- 
hind me, shall I be annihated as a spiritual beings 
When I go to the spiritual world, I must take my 
character with me — that which is made an integral part 
of my spiritual character by its development in me. 
Of -course, then, where ever I go that must go. The 
love that rules within me must go with me until that 
ruling love is changed, or until some holier love shall 
call me to a higher plane of action. I am prepared to 
maintain that when we go to the spiritual world, we 
shall take with us all the loves, affections, thoughts, 
feelings and sentiments which characterize us as indi- 
vidual beings." 

Again : " The idea that when a spirit leaves the body 
he gets rid of all his impurity, has caused many to 
greatly venerate spiritual communications ; and attach 
to them much authority. I remember that it was with 
much deference that I listened to the first communica^ 
tions that came from the spirit world ; but I very soon 
learned that a spirit was not necessarily wiser because 
of his separation from the body, and that he required 
quite as much watching as one in the body. ISTot that 
they are below the world ; for when you have taken an 
average of the justice and wisdom of the world, you 
will find that the standard it could set up would not 
be very high. When you look over the earth and wit- 
ness the very low state of character of the human race 
here, why should you wonder that spirits of a very low 
character should hover around us and manifest them- 
selves to the world." 

And again : " I know that spirits do communicate — 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 205 



do exist. It is not with me a matter of conjecture at 
all — I know it," etc. 

I will also quote from an interesting pamphlet, called 
" Spirit- works Real but not Miraculous." Davis, in 
his " Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse," says "Spir- 
its, in all past times where they have communicated 
with man, observed, though they did not well under- 
stand, the great principles of aromal intercourse," 
which our author Mr. Putnam thus elucidates : " Place 
a small bunch of fragrant violets in each of two vases 
upon your center table, and the aroma or fragrance of 
each bunch will extend to the other, and blend with 
the other's aroma both around and in the bunch, and 
through all the space between the two. Now these 
lines or rays of fragrance from one, that intermix with 
and run parallel to similar lines from the other, may be 
telegraphic wires- along which the violets might, if 
intelligent, send back and forth their mutual thoughts 
and feeling. Remove one bunch of violets and put a 
rose in its place, and the blended rays will produce a 
different odor, which might be more agreeable to some 
of us, and less so to others. A similar blending of 
electrical aromas doubtless takes place when any two of 
us meet, and also between each of us and any spirit that 
may be in attendance upon us. Such aroma, though it 
escapes our senses, is yet perceived by the dog, and the 
dog's power of discernment teaches that no two of us 
give off effluvia that are precisely alike. Now the elec- 
trical evolutions of one human body may be such as 
will readily combine with the electrical emanations from 
some spirits, and the two in close and concordant alli- 
ance, like muscle and nerve, may be adequate to the 



206 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

performance of such works as we are now considering. 
Some such affinity and coalescence,, I suppose, takes 
place when ever one is what we call a medium. But 
the same electrical condition in a spirit which adapts 
him or her to work through some one of us, may yet 
he unsuited to work kindly with another person whose 
electrical aroma is either much more or much less posi- 
tive. Spirits may differ as much in power to use men, 
as men differ m susceptibilities to be used by the spir- 
its. The work is done through an aromal intercourse, 
and it is only when the spirit aroma, and the mundane 
aroma combine in harmonious equilibrium — -making as 
it were but one, and that one subject to the spirit's will, 
that man becomes the spirit's instrument, Violet and 
violet may furnish an efficient mixture, while violet 
and rose combined may be unfit for use;" 

Again, beautifully : " Life's pathway has seemed to 
myself and many others to be illumined with a new 
light—either an ignis latuus, a false light, luring to 
dismal swanrps of error and disquietude— or it is** a 
sim conceived from creation's dawn, in nature's living 
laws—now but beginning to shine on man with steady 
light) and promising to guide his steps to long hidden 
fountains of truth and gladness. Is it a phantom or a 
sun ? Is it a creature of deluded human brains, or is 
it the handiwork of the eternal Gocl ? Having used 
ray own senses— those, to me, best possible witnesses— 
ind having used them in this work for more than a 
year, I am prepared to receive the light that is now 
struggling through the mists around us, as the dawn 
of a new day. And if it has been my lot, as we are 
performing our match over J ire's hill-tops and down 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 207 

across its valleys — if it has been my lot to stand on a 
spot where its earlier beams have met my eye — why 
shall I not speak of the cheering event to those, whether 
before or behind me, who are now marching in the 
shaded valley?" 

Can any thing that springs from the human heart 
be more angelic than these extracts ? Will it detract 
from or add to their accreditation when I inform you 
that their author is a clergyman? My own opinion is 
that so much as this information may detract from the 
character of the production, just so much it will add to 
the character of the clergyman. If the clerical pro- 
fession generally were half such as he (Mr. Putnam) 
in charity, humanity, truth and love, to say nothing of 
talents, study and honest effort, how gladly would I 
retract my bitter animadversions and expend them my 
right hand of cordial greeting. 

And again from the same author, to whom I wrote 
asking the privilege of quoting the above. In his 
private letter to me he says (and I hope he will pardon 
this liberty) : "It gives me great pleasure to learn 
that my early lecture has found favor with one who can 
appreciate and is disposed to speak to the world upon 
the spiritual philosophy of life. If it has been my 
privilege to furnish the world with any thing instruct- 
ive and useful concerning the intercourse of spirits with 
mortals, I desire to thank God and his ministering 
spirits for the opportunity and the power. The little 
which I have published is at the service of any one 
who judges that he can make it useful." After kindly 
invitations he concludes : " May wisdom from heavenly 
founts inflow your mind and fit you to produce a work 
10 



208 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

which shall tend to the elevation and purification of 
man." 

Fll now read from his "Mesmerism, Spiritualism, 
Witchcraft and Miracle," which he kindly sent me: 
"The old records abound in facts which might be 
adduced in evidence that Witchcraft is resolvable into 
Mesmerism and Spiritualism, and therefore into the 
legitimate operations of natural laws. But we have 
given to this topic all the space we can afford, till we 
pass beyond our facts to some speculations and reflec- 
tions. 

" The clear-sighted logician will see, I think, that, 
from the point now reached, a direct path extends on 
to the seeress of Prevorst, to Swedenborg, to Scottish 
seers, to Joan of Arc, to Mahomet, to Roman augurs, 
Grecian priestesses, and all who have given their con- 
temporaries assurances that they saw spirit-forms and 
conversed with the departed, or with angels. The 
prophets, seers, and magicians of all ages and nations; 
may have been all that they claimed to be, and yet 
have been only mesmeric subjects and spirit mediums. 
This view starts the inquiry whether any of the Scrip- 
ture miracles were the acts of unseen finite intelligences, 
;using their normal powers in submission to fixed laws. 
The question is legitimate and proper. And it gives 
me pleasure to make an affirmative answer, for, in doing 
that, I behold a God so perfect that his wisdom and 
power were, from the beginning, competent to devise 
such laws as should without violation, without suspen- 
sion, admit under and in obedience to themselves all the 
light and all the angel-visitations which his children 
on earth might «ver need. When man shall see and 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 209 

feel that heaven's inhabitants may come to earth by 
natural processes, and work among us just according to 
their several abilities and characters, then the greatest 
difficulties of philosophical faith in the Bible as a record 
of teachings from on high will melt away, and the 
wisdom of God himself will appear to us more com- 
plete. The departed Samuel did appear to the woman 
of Endor and to Saul ; Moses and Elias did appear to 
Jesus and his companions, and, as spirits are seen and 
conversed with in our day, the fair presumption is that 
the processes of return were the same then as now. 
Angels rolled the stone frOm the mouth of the sepul- 
chre; they opened Peter's prison-doors. Spirits move 
heavy bodies now; and why not by the same laws as 
then? In olden times such works were done in the 
dark; they are mostly and most successfully done in 
the dark now, and thus give ground for presumption 
that both are manifestations of one law. Unlearned 
apostles spoke in languages which they had never talked 
or studied before — many mediums now do the same. 
The sick were healed by a look or a touch — the same 
thing is frequently done now. Jesus, in a certain 
place, performed but few mighty works, because of the 
unbelief which surrounded him, and at this day unbe- 
lief on the part of those present is a formidable bar to 
spirit manifestation. Jesus walked upon the water — 
Margaret Rule floated in the air — and so have others 
quite recently. These and other points of resemblance 
in the manifestations indicate a- compliance with the 
same law or laws. , The above conclusion by no means 
requires one to ascribe the same wisdom and holiness 
to the spirits who come now as to those who came of 



210 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

old • nor does it bring the moral and religious charac- 
ter of Jesus and the apostles into comparison with that 
of modern mediums. Formerly there was occasion to 
- try the spirits/ and most surely the need exists at the 
present day. Far back in the Jewish history, God said 
he would put a lying spirit in the mouth of his 
prophet, and it is written that an evil spirit from the 
Lord troubled Saul. Lying and evil spirits from some 
source, as well as truthful and good ones, find their way 
into mediums now. The mediums themselves are not 
all supposed to be above treachery and deceit. There 
was one Judas of old — perhaps our times furnish many 
There were both good and bad spirits and prophesiers 
in Bible times, and there are both good and bad spirits 
and mediums, too, at the present day. One fact of 
Scripture, showing the immediate author or authors of 
John's inspiration when writing the Apocalypse, may 
throw* a bright light upon the subject of spirit action. 
Jesus sent his angel to John, -in the spirit;' John saw 
and heard that angel, and learned from him that he 
w r as not God, but one of John's brethren, the prophets. 
This seems to be a clear statement that the spirit of 
one who had been a prophet on earth was sent by Jesu^ 
±o John ; and that when the angel was present, John 
* in the spirit ' (trance ?) saw and heard the things 
w 7 hich he described and recorded. That angel was a 
speaker to John, and it is his words in part which 
•come to us as inspiraticn. Let that light shine back 
upon the Book of Daniel, and some other parts of the 
Scriptures, and see if the Bible itself does not contain 
internal proof that individual, finite spirits furnished 
many parts of it to the recording mediums^ and thus 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFJF. 211 

indicate that inspiration from above comes in obedience 
to some universal law. Let a view like this become 
general, and then, if its effects upon those who already 
take it warrant a prophecy, the world will turn to the 
Bible with fresh interest and find there, more than ever 
before, a storehouse richly furnished with treasures of 
truth and love and wisdom from the heavens. The 
Bible will hereafter find its truest friends, its only 
invincible defenders, among those who shall guard it 
within the walls of Spiritualism, and read it there in 
the light of heavenly inspiration. If enough has been 
exhibited to furnish plausible reason for asking whether 
mesmerism is not a key which may unlock many long- 
closed chambers of mystery, then I have no occasion 
for further presentation of facts, but may, in the future 
pages, indulge in some explanations and reflections. 
Every reader has doubtless asked, ' What is mesmer- 
ism V' This being put forth as a solvent of many great 
mysteries of all times and among all people what is 
this mesmerism itself? Frankly, it is itself quite a 
mystery yet, but it is not looked upon as involving any 
thing supernatural, devilish, or in such a sense miracu- 
lous as to imply either a suspension or a violation of 
natural laws in its processes of manifestation. Through 
it we learn that some men, by a concentrated applica- 
tion of their mental forces, aided often by the eye or 
the hand, can either take from or impart to certain per- 
sons some property or fluid which enables the operator 
to become master in the subject's house or body. 
Through that other body he manifests himself; but he 
does this only imperfectly. He has power there, but 
not power equal to that which he can display through 



212 PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 

his own organs. A man is cramped when he has to 
take a borrowed body, therefore a spirit well may be 
so too. In successful mesmerism, the subject will walk 
or sit or kneel or lie down; will move this way 
or that; will say this thing or that; will perform 
the most ludicrous or the most appropriate acts; 
will see one object or another; will taste or smell 
or feel any imaginable substance, whether present or 
not, just according to the will of the operator. But 
this is not all; frequently such possession effects a lib- 
eration of the subject's intellectual and perceptive fac- 
ulties from the control, not of the operator alone, but 
also from the crampings of his own external organs, 
and thus enables him to look out through walls of solid 
masonry, through hills of granite, and into the most 
interior recesses of the human body, or any other ani- 
mal or vegetable organism. He seems to possess per- 
ceptive faculties which enable him to see and hear and 
sense through all material objects, at vast distances and 
in all directions. Thus conditioned he can read the 
autobiography of any natural object, scan the distant 
and get glimpses of the future. He seems like one 
freed from the body and endowed with organs which 
use electricity as their medium of sight and sound, and 
thus can he see and hear through whatever electricity 
can penetrate; that is, through almost if not quite all 
material objects. Some men, then, possess and can put 
forth such will-power as makes certain other men their 
abject and unresisting tools, simple unconscious organs 
by which to express their own thoughts and purposes. 
Sometimes such control is absolute, but in more cases 
only partial, and such a subduing force when carried 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 213 

beyond a certain point pushes the subject's intellectual 
and perceptive faculties into unwonted freedom and - 
independence, and makes him a more independent and 
gifted man than before. 

" Such are the results of human magnetism, called 
mesmerism only because Mesmer applied it and drew 
attention to it more definitely and extensively than any 
one had done before his time. The getting control of 
another's organism, either by abstracting from it or im- 
parting to it human magnetism, is mesmerism. It is 
the action of one mind, in connection with its envelop- 
ing body, upon another's body and its indwelling mind. 
It is some action of the living upon the living, and not 
upon tables and chairs. 

" Many tell us that Spiritualism is nothing but mes- 
merism. Of course such a statement admits that it is 
as much as mesmerism — that it is, in fact, the same 
thing. Thanks for this concession: because mesmer- 
ism, if permitted to mature, may ripen .into Spiritual- 
ism. Our tree, like the orange, often shows flowers 
and green fruit and ripe at the same time. Much that 
is supposed to be only mesmerism is, in fact, Spiritual- 
ism; also much of whnt is regarded as Spiritualism is 
only mesmerism. Often, when man magnetizes, he 
puts his subject into such a state that some spirit 
quietly slips in and works there, and yet the spirit's 
presence is not suspected. At such times an angel is 
entertained unawares. Spiritualism is there under the 
name of m^merism. On the other hand our spirit- 
mediums often get mesmerized by the company present 
so as to become claivoyant and clairaudient. The inter- 
nal or spirit eyes and ears of the mediums get opened 



214 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

by the undesigned, unwilled Sowings of human mag- 
netism to or from those around them. Their words 
may report to us spirit-utterances and describe spirits 
and spirit-scenes, and yet the real speakers may be only 
entranced mortals, listening to the voices above, and 
looking into the homes of the ascended. There may 
be a pure mesmerism which opens a way for mortals 
to see and hear the departed. What then is a distinc- 
tion between mesmerism and Spiritualism ? Mesmer- 
ism is something which a man does while he has his 
clothes on — Spiritualism is a similar act of his after 
his clothes have been put off. Suppose I magnetize 
you to-day, and that I, the mesmerizer, speak, write, 
act, through you, you being unconscious — this is mes- 
merism. Suppose, further, that I die to-night, and 
that to-morrow I, a spirit, come and magnetize you, 
and then speak, write, act, through you — this is Spir- 
itualism. Here we have the same operator working 
upon and through the same subject, the only difference 
being that to-day I, the operator, am in the body — 
haviug my clothes on, while to-morrow I am to be out 
of the body, or to have my clothes off. Such is the 
only essential difference between mesmerism and Spir- 
itualism in some of its forms. If man's powers are 
not diminished by the death of his body, then some 
spirits can mesmerize susseptible subjects. No increase 
of power is needed — no miracle is wanted. Mesmer- 
ism and Spiritalism may differ no more than the green 
fruit and the ripe on the same tree. The} 7 are nour- 
ished through the same roots, the same trunk — one 
ripens into the other. Those who are so inclined may 
pluck all the oranges from their own trees while the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFJ 215 

fruit is yet green ; but I beg of them to leave mine 
upon the branches, and when an orange there shall have 
become fully ripe. I trust they will not dissuade me 
from eating it, by alleging that their own green ones 
have never tasted good. Spirits, then, often have to 
perform the difficult and uncertain process of inducing 
a full mesmeric sleep before they can manage the hand 
of the flesh. Several persons, who are susceptible to 
both the mesmeric and the spirit influence, have told 
me that when the controling fluid comes to them from 
one in the body they feel it flowing in horizontally 
and entering mostly about the region of the eyes ? but 
when it comes from spirits the stream is verticle and 
enters through the spiritual organs on the crown of the 
head. That the process of mesmerizing and of spirit- 
ualizing a subject are very similar, might be argued 
from the fact that both succeed best under like circum- 
stances. Both are most easily performed where alii 
minds are quiet or passive; both ask for good air and 
an harmonious circle, and both generally succeed best 
with the same organism and temperaments ; in other 
words, in most cases but not in all, good spirit mediums 
can be easily magnetized. The difference, then, be^ 
tween mesmerism and Spiritualism in some of its 
forms is not enough to let ns regard them as generically 
different, 

" If any spirit can visit earth and work here why 
can not all others ? If my spirit friend can communi- 
cate through a stranger, why can he not do the same 
through me? Why can not all spirits come? Why 
are not all persons mediums ? Such questions .have- 
come up in every mind. You have said r if spirit* 
10* 



216 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

come why do they not come to and through me? 
Probably they are hindered by natural obstacles, inhe- 
rent in either them or yourself. How is it in mesmer- 
ism? There are but few successful magnetizers, but 
few facile subjects. Mr. can very easily mag- 
netize several of my acquaintances and friends, but he 
can produce no effect upon me. Why this difference? 
Feed two oxen alike for years and then bring them to 
the shambles — you may find the meat of one tender 
and juicy, that of the other tough and dry. One man 
has fine and soft hair, while another's is coarse and 
hard. Why so? Who can tell me why? The facts 
are obvious, but the reasons for them can not be given. 
We can only say such are the results of God's modes 
of working.. Now, then, if in our fibres and fluids 
and enienations we differ one from another why may 
not some of us be very susceptible to certain influences 
which others cannot feel at all ? Why may not some 
impart much more easily and powerfully than others ? 
Till the mesmerist can magnetize any one person just 
as easily and as thoroughly as he can any other, why ex- 
pect that spirits can ? Till all men are efficient mag- 
netizers, why think that all spirits can. be? Till all 
men are facile subjects for the embodied magnetizer, 
why suppose that they can be for a disembodied one? 
The hidden reasons which exist in the one case, 
ought, as we view these subjects, to exist also in the 
other. We believe that they do. Beyond a certain 
point mesmerism fails to furnish illustration of Spirit- 
ualism. 

" We come now to the raps and tips. This working 
outside of and distant from the medium's body, and 



PHILOSOPHY OP L1FK. 217 

this infusion of animation and intelligence into inan- 
imate wood, is more than mesmerism has ever claimed 
or seemed to perform. The visible, living man, acting 
upon a visible, living organism, is always involved in 
mesmerism, but many of the physical manifestations of 
Spiritualism imply some invisible power revealing 
intelligence through inanimate matter. The raps and 
knockings and table-tippings have never come out 
among the works of mesmerism. The harsh pound- 
ings, the childish tiltings, the unmannerly antics of 
heavy pianos and large dining tables, are, as many say, 
too low and vulgar for any decent mind in the body 
to wish for or to prompt ; no well bred mesmerist ever 
calls for such results. True, true; but would they 
come if he did call for them? No; he does not show 
the raps and tips. And why not ? Simply because he 
can not? These low and ridiculed works lie beyond 
the farthest stretch of his powers. A table rising and 
floating gently in the air, a piano dancing to the tune 
that is being played upon itself, a human form rising 
gently from the floor toward the ceiling and moving 
dovelike around the room, a chair tipping in answer to 
questions, and all this where neither muscle nor 
machinery, nor any tangible mechanical power, was 
applied ; these things, and others like them, which are 
happening every month, and are seen over and over 
again by many credible witnesses — these things are not 
found in mfsmerism. Did animal magnetism, did 
electricity, did odyle, did either or all of these consti- 
tute the intelligent actor in the chair which answered 
my questions? No; these fluids or forces of nature- 
are not mind.. 



218 PHILOSOPHY OF LTPE. 

" They do not, they can not guide and control action 
so as to converse with man. They may be and doubt- 
less are instruments through which one mind imparts 
intelligence to another, but they, in and of themselves, 
are not mind, and can not think nor act intelligently. 
Let the most powerful embodied mesmerizer which the 
world contains try his will upon the insensible chair, 
and will the chair move at his bidding? No; not the 
fraction of an inch, Charge the chair, even incased in 
glass or coated with sealing-wax — charge it with all 
the magnetism, electricity and odylic fluid imaginable, 
and will they all generate in it or convey into it mind 
enough to* understand and to answer my question ? No, 
obviously no. You know that if an embodied mes- 
merizer should will the chair to move, and keep on 
willing it to move for hours, that it would not stir an 
inch unless he applied his hand to it. His will-power 
controls only living- organism. You know, too, that 
neither magnetism, electricity, nor odyle, could be made 
to give or to generate a mind in the chair ; yet its mo- 
tions proved that mind was* there. Common sense 
demands the admission of this. But mind needs tools 
or organs when it gives intelligent movements to mat- 
ter. We usually find it expressing itself through the 
eyes, the face, the tongue, the hand. The acting mind 
surely needed a hand or something with the powers of 
a hand, to move that chair. So also did the one angel 
to roll away the stone, and the other angel to unlock 
the prison-door. Something with the powers of a hand 
was needed in each case. Perhaps a hand Avas there. 
Spirits profess to have power under favorable circum- 
stances to gather up and use some (to us) invisible em- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 219 

enations from the bodies of our mediums, and elements 
from the atmosphere in some localities, and to combine 
these with certain properties inherent in themselves, 
and from these materials to construct hands, arms, etc., 
varying jn strength according to their own inherent 
powers and the qualities of the foreign materials used, 
they profess to be able to form hands, arms, etc., vary- 
ing in strength from those of a feeble infant up to 
those of a veritable Samson. When such tools have 
been constructed, the invisible ones work .out by aid of 
them results which man can see and hear and feel. 
Then raps and tips are heard and seen ; then the low 
things become high. A hand from out of the invisible 
did once appear and write upon the walls of a banquet- 
room, and the form of another was put forth and took 
Ezekiel by a lock of his head, and the spirit lifted him 
up between the earth and the heaven. When were the 
laws repealed by which such hands were formed and did 
their work ? Our whole train of remark implies sup- 
position, that refined electricity, magnetism, odyle, or 
some unknown but yet eternal and universal fluid has 
been an essential instrument in all parts of spirit com- 
munication, as well in Judea as in other lands. It im- 
plies, too, that this instrument can never have been 
wanting in any age; Why, then, have angel visits 
been so -few and far between V We need not answer 
a querry like this because of any bearing it may have 
upon the question whether spirits come now. That 
ocean and" those winds had always existed which bore 
Columbus to the New World, but the question why 
Europeans had so seldom, if ever, reached America be- 
isbrc, couM not invalidate the fact that Columbus him- 



2'20 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE'. 

self had reached it. If it be proved that spirits come 
now, the infrequency of their visits heretofore will not 
disprove the fact. Still the question why they should 
come so much more frequently and generally now than 
in former times, is a very natural and propeivone, and 
is worthy of the best answer we can give. That 
answer, however, will have little weight with any but 
those who are already prepared to give some credence 
where statements are backed by no authority beyond 
that of utterances through spirit mediums. Is it im- 
possible that modes and means of using the subtile 
fluids in man and nature are better understood even by 
the spirits now than they were in ages past? Can the 
departed continue to make advances in scientific and 
practical knowledge? Who among us can tell? Elec- 
tricity and magnetism have always existed ; yet it was 
but quite recently that man became acquainted with 
their extent and nature, and that he learned how to 
subject them in any degree to his control ; still more 
recent did he invent the telegraph. Man, by his dis- 
coveries in electricity and steam within the last half 
century, has become able to convey his thoughts and 
his person much more widely, speedily and definitely 
to people and places on the earth now than he could 
before. Possibly spirits may have made recent discov- 
eries and inventions, by Which they can come to us 
more easily, speedily, and definitely, and make them- 
selves more distinctly felt and better understood by us 
than formerly." 

Thus you see the same philosophy evolved and enter- 
tained by this gentleman and myself, extemporaneously 
and unknown to each other., 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 221 

Before this spiritual philosophy was evolved by 
modern science. Cuvier, whose brain was the largest 
ever measured, who could define the genus and even 
species of an animal from an inspection of one of its 
primary bones, and Avho was honored of emperors for 
his profound science in paleontology, comparative anat- 
omy, zoology, physiology and geology, said that " It 
scarcely admits of further doubt that the proximity of 
two' living bodies in certain circumstances and with 
certain movements, has a real effect independently of 
all participation of the imagination of one of the two ;" 
and he further adds : " It appears now clearly enough 
that the effects are due to some communication estab- 
lished between their nervous systems/* This is scien- 
tific prescience. In connection with Cuvier I'll relate 
an anecdote illustrating the confidence of mind and 
science, and another equally illustrating the trepidation 
of mere matter and nescience : In a dream the devil 
appeared to Cuvier, and said he had come to devour 
him. Cuvier surveyed him thoroughly and exclaimed, 
" Horns, hoofs, c/raminiverous — Fni not afraid of you." 
His Satanic Majesty also presented himself to one of 
the sable sons of Ham, whose race the Puritans are so 
eager to take to their bosoms, and who, it must be con- 
fessed, are equals of the latter in every thing save 
shoddy, or the power of pecuniosity, and nasal psalm- 
singing on Sunday, in which latter, however, there is 
great rythmic concord. Says Ham, " Who dat '?" 
" The Devil, come after Ham." " Ham not here — 
Ham ain't bin here dese two months!" was the quick 
and silly answer of the ignorant and frightened Afric 
hero. I will now read from " Spiritualism Scientifi- 
cally Demonstrated :" 



222 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFL . 

" The facts which I have noticed in relation to medi- 
umship, are certainty among the most inexplicable in 
nature. 

" There are two modes in which spiritual manifesta- 
tions are made through the influence or sub-agency of 
media. In the one mode, they employ the tongue to 
speak, the fingers to write, or hands to actuate tables 
or instruments for communication ; in the other, they 
act upon ponderable matter directly, through a halo or 
aura appertaining to media; so- that although the 
muscular power may be incapacit ited for aiding them, 
they will cause a body to move, or produce raps intelli- 
gibly so as to select letters conveying their ideas, unin- 
fluenced by those of the medium. 

u Even where they act through the muscular frame 
of the media, their vision may be intercepted by a 
screen, so that they cannot influence the selection of the 
letters requisite to a communication. (Plate 1.) 

" Rappings or tappings are made at the distance of 
many feet from the medium, and ponderable bodies, 
such as bells, are moved or made to undergo the motion 
requisite to being rung. 

" It will be perceived that my spirit father, in reply 
to the queries put in relation to this mystery, asks, 
e How do you move your limbs — carry the body where- 
soever it goeth ? how does God cause the movements of 
astronomical orbs ? ' 

"Evidently some instrument must intervene between 
the Divine will and the bodies actuated thereby, and 
in humble imitations between the human will and the 
limbs. Upon the viscera our will has no influence. 
The heart moves without the exercise of volition. 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 223 

"As there is an ethereal medium by means of which 
light moves through space from the remotest visible 
fixed star to the eye, at the rate of two hundred thou- 
sand miles per second; through an affection of the 
same ether frictional electricity moves, according to 
Wheatstone's estimate, with a velocity exceeding that 
of light — so may we not infer that the instrument of 
Divine will acts with still greater velocity, and that in 
making man in this respect after His own image, so far 
as necessary to an available existence, gives him one 
degree of power over the same element while in the 
mortal state, and another higher degree of power in the 
spiritual state. But if there be an element through 
which a spirit within his mortal frame is capable of 
actuating that frame, may hoc this element of actuation 
be susceptible of becoming an instrument to the will of 
another spirit in the immortal state? 

"The aura of a medium which thus enables an im- 
mortal spirit to do within its scope things which it 
cannot do otherwise, appears to vary with the human 
being resorted to; so that only a few are so endowed 
with this aura as to be competent as media. Moreover, 
in those who are so constituted as to be competent 
instruments of spiritual actuation, this competency is 
various. There is a gradation of competency, by which 
the nature of the instrumentality varies from that which 
empowers violent loud knocking and the moving of 
ponderable bodies without actual contact, to the grade 
which confers power to make intellectual communica- 
tions of the higher order without that of audible knock- 
ing. Further, the power to employ these grades of 
mediumship varies as the sphere of the spirit varies. 



224 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

u It has been stated that mortals have each a halo 
perceptible to spirits, by which they are enabled to 
determine the sphere to which any individual will go 
on passing death's portal. Spirits cannot approach 
effectively a medium of a sphere much above, or below 
that to which they belong. 

" As media, in proportion as they are more capable 
of serving for the higher intellectual communications 
are less capable of serving for mechanical demonstra- 
tions, and as they are more capable of the latter are less 
competent for the former, spirits likewise have a higher 
or lower capacity to employ media. It has been men- 
tioned that having made a test apparatus, my spirit 
sister alleged that it could not be actuated by her with- 
out assistance of spirits from a lower sphere. I in- 
quired whether she could not meet me again, accompa- 
nied by the requisite aid. The reply was in the affirm- 
ative, and accordingly she met me at an appointed 
hour, and my apparatus was actuated effectually under 
test conditions. (Plate 4, dd, ii, kk.) 

" After I had read over an exposition of my informa- 
tion respecting the spirit world to the spirit of the illus- 
trious Washington, I requested him to give me a con- 
firmation while the medium should be under test con- 
ditions. (Plate 4, kk.) I placed the hand of the me- 
dium upon the board lever of the instrument, of which 
a representation has been given (Plate 1, Plate 4), so 
as to be on the outer side of the fulcrum, and requested 
him to attest the reliability of the medium during the 
previous intercommunion. In reply it was alleged not 
to be within his power to give me that test ; I urged 
that this test had been given in his presence. ( We 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 225 

had an employee then/ was his rejoiner. Fortunately 
I had contrived a test instrument requiring less of the 
mechanical power, so that by means of it he was ena- 
bled to perfect the evidence by bringing the index to 
the affirmative, under conditions which put it out of 
the power of- the medium to produce that result. (See 
Plate 4 and description.) 

" These facts make the subject of mediumship a most 
complicated mystery; but the creation teems with 
mystery, so that inscrutability cannot be a ground of 
disbelief of anything. The only cases wherein there is 
absolute incredibility, are those in which the definition 
of the premises contradicts those of the inferences or 
conclusions. 

"It is evident from the creative power which the 
spirits aver themselves to possess, that they exercise 
faculties which they do not understand. Their expla- 
nation of the mysteries of mediumship only substitutes 
one mystery for another. 

" If we undertake to generalize, it must come pretty 
near what I have said above, that spirits are endowed, 
as my spirit father alleges, with a ' magic will/ capa- 
ble of producing, as they allege, wonderful results 
within their own world, nevertheless that this will does 
not act by itself directly on mundane bodies. An inter- 
medium is found in the halo or aura within or without 
certain human organizations. The halos thus existing 
are not all similarly endowed ; some having one, some 
another capability. Some are better for one object, 
some for another object. Again, the will-power varies 
as the sphere of the spirits is higher or lower, so that 
the medium suited for one is not suited for another. 



2*26 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

"Thus the means by which they are capable of com- 
municating are various, and moreover precarious, ac- 
cording to the health and equanimity of the mortal 
being under whose halo they may strive to act. 

" Concerned in the processes of mediumship, it is 
manifest that there is none of that kind of electricity 
or magnetism of which the laws and phenomena have 
been the subject of Faraday's researches and which are 
treated of in books, under the heads of frictional or 
mechanical electricity, galvanism, or electro-mag- 
netism, 

''Frictional electricity, such as produced usually by 
the friction of glass in an electrical machine, or of aque- 
ous globules generated by steam escaping from a boiler,, 
is always to be detected by electrometers, or the spark 
given to a conducting body when in communication. 
with the earth ; the human knuckle, for instance. 
When not sufficiently accumulated to produce these 
evidences of its presence, it must be in a very feeble 
state of excitement. But even in highest accumula- 
tion by human means, as in the discharge of a power- 
fully charged Leyden battery, it only acts for a time 
inconceivably brief, and does not move ponderable 
masses as they are moved in the instance of spiritual 
manifestation. It is only in transitu, that frictional 
electricity displays much power, and then its path is 
extremely narrow, and the duration of its influence 
inconceivably minute. According to Wheatstone's ex- 
periments and calculations, it would go round the earth 
in the tenth part of a second. 

"How infinitely small, then, the period required to 
go from one side of a room to another ! Besides, there 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 227 

are neither means of generating sneli electricity^ nor 
of securing that insulation which must be an indispen- 
sable precursor of accumulation. Galvanic or voltaic 
electricity does not act at a distance so as to produce 
any recognized effects, except in the case of magnetic 
metals, or in the state of transition produced by an elec- 
tric discharge. In these phenomena the potent effects 
are attainable only by means of perfect insulated con- 
ductors, as we see in the telegraphic apparatus. ~No 
reaction with imperfect conducting bodies competent to 
toss them to and fro, or up and down, can be accom- 
plished. The decomposing influence, called electrolytic, 
is only exhibited at insensible distances, within a fila- 
ment of the matter affected. 

" It has appeared to me a great error on the part of 
spirits, as well as mortals, that they should make efforts 
to explain the phenomena of the spirit world by the 
ponderable or imponderable agents of the temporal 
world. The fact that the rays of our sun do not affect 
the spirit world, and that there is for that region an 
appropriate luminary wmose rays we do not perceive 
(115), must demonstrate that the imponderable element 
to which they owe their peculiar light differs from the 
ethereal fluid which, according to the undulatory 
theory, is the means of producing light in the terrestrial 
creation. 

"In one of the replies made by the convocation (571), 
the idea was sanctioned of the effulgence of the spirit 
being due to an appropriate ethereal fluid, analogous 
to that above alluded to. But it has, I think, been 
shown by me, that as light is due to the undulations of 
our etner, so electricity is due to waves polarization. 



228 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

But if undulations produce light in the ether of the 
spiritual universe as well as in ours, why may not po- 
larization produce in the ether of the spirit world an 
electricity analogous to ours ? Thus, although in spir- 
itual manifestations our electricity takes no part, their 
electricity maybe the means by which their will is trans- 
mitted eifectually in the phenomena which it controls, 

"'The words magnetism and magnetic are used in 
this world in two different senses. In one, it signifies 
the magnetism of magnets or electro-magnets ; in the 
other, the animal magnetism of which the existence was 
suggested by Mesmer, and which is commonly galled 
mesmerism. 

"This mesmerical magnetism seems to be dependent 
rather on properties which we have as immortals en- 
cased in a corporeal clothing, than as mortals owing 
our mental faculties to that frame. If it be the spirit- 
ual portion of our organization which is operative in 
clairvoyancy, spiritual electricity may be the interme- 
dium both of that faculty and of mesmeric influence. 

" All spirits are clairvoyant more or less, and where 
this faculty is exercised it seems to be due to an un- 
usual ascendency of the spiritual powers over th-e cor- 
poreal, so that clairvoyants possess some of the faculties 
which every spirit, after shuffling off the mortal coil, 
must possess to a greater or less extent. 

" The only explanation of which I can conceive is, 
that spirits, by volition, can deprive bodies of vis iner- 
tim and move bodies, as they do themselves, by their 
will. But the necessity of the presence of a medium to 
the display of this power, granting its existence, is a 
mystery. 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 229 

" That the spirit should, by its 'magic* will-power, 
take possession of the frame of a human being, so as to 
make use of its brain and nervoas system, depriving its 
appropriate owner of control, is a wonderful fact suffi- 
ciently difficult to believe, yet, nevertheless, intelligi- 
ble. The aura which surrounds a medium must be 
imponderable. No volition of the medium can, through 
its instrumentality, move ponderable bodies, nor cause 
raps or consequent vibrations in the wooden boards. 
Hence, the presence of a medium imparts power to 
spirits which the medium does not possess. 

" The aura on the one side, and the spirit on the 
other, are inert unless associated. Thus the volition of 
the spirit gives activity to an effluvium, by itself, so 
devoid of efficacy that it wholly escapes the perception 
of the possessor or the observation of his mundane com- 
panions, it has been already alleged, that the usual 
reference to mundane electricity must be wholly un- 
satisfactory to all acquainted with the phenomena and 
laws associated under that name ; since no such move- 
ments have ever been produced Jby such electrical 
means, nor is it consistent with these mundane electri- 
cal laws, nor the facts which electricians have noticed, 
that such movements should be produced. Those 
movements which have been produced by electricity 
have never been effected without surfaces oppositely 
charged, nor, of course, without the means of charging 
them. Neither are there associated with the spriritual 
manifestations means at hand of creating nor of holding 
charges either [even?] much more minute than those 
which display perceptible force or cause audible sound. 
Electro-magnetic phenomena require the use of power- 



230 PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 

ful galvanic batteries or magnetic metals. Galvanic 
series, of the most powerful kind, do not act at the 
minutest distance without contact. 

u Even lightning could not move a table backward 
and forward, though it might shatter it into pieces, if 
duly interposed in a circuit. Electrical sparks produce 
snapping sounds in the air, not knockings or rappings 
upon sonorous solids. An incredulity liable to be 
overcome by the reasjn by which it has been created 
does not form a bar ; but where an impregnable bigotry 
has been introduced merely by education, so that the 
person under its influence would have been a Catholic, 
Calvinist, Unitarian, Jew, or Mohammedan by a 
change of parentage, cannot usually be changed by any 
evidence or argument. Spirits will not spend their 
time subjecting their manifestations to such impregna- 
ble bigotry, or to predetermined malevolence. 

" On this account such persons -find it hard to obtain 
the manifestations which they seek with ill-will to 
Spiritualism, and a predisposition to ridicule and per- 
vert it. 

" Besides this difficulty, there is no doubt a constitu- 
tional state, the inverse of that which creates a medium. 
The atmosphere of persons so constituted neutralizes 
that of those who are endowed with that of medium- 
ship. 

u It were impossible for any one to be more incredu- 
lous than I was when I commenced my investigations ; 
but in the first place my recorded religious impressions, 
founded on more than a half century of intense reflec- 
tion, in no respect conflicted with the belief which 
Spiritualism required. As I said to a clergyman, I 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 231 

wish I knew as well what I ought to believe, as I can 
perceive what I ought not to believe. I was ardently 
desirous that the existence of a future state should be 
established in a way to conform to positive science, so 
that they might start together. This was perceived 
by my spirit friends, and that they had only to give 
me sufficient evidence of the existence of spirits and 
their world to make me lay down in the cause my com- 
paratively worthless mortal life, could I be more useful 
to truth in dying than in living. 

"" Thus it appears that there is a mesmeric electricity, 
or spiritual electricity, which may be considered as ap- 
propriate to the spirit world as their vital air is ; but 
which, like that air, may influence our spiritual bodies 
while in their mundane tenement. It may, as well as 
the vital air of the spirit world, belong in common to 
ttie inhabitants of that world, and to us as spirits, being 
a polarizing affection of the spiritual ethereal medium 
of which the undulations constitute the peculiar rays 
of their spiritual sun. 

" That this spiritual or mesmeric electricity should 
•be auxiliary to the efficacy of the magic will-power of 
spirits, is of course one of those mysteries which, like 
that of gravitation, may be ascertained to prevail, and 
yet be to spirits as well as mortals inexplicable. 

" We live in a wonder-working universe, which be- 
comes more and more wonderful as we learn more of it, 
instead of being brought more -within our comprehen- 
sion. When we compare what we know with the 
knowledge of savages, it may appear a mountain of 
learning and science; but this very learning and 
science only makes us see still more how 7 great is our 
ignorance ! " 
11 



232 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

Thus I have given you the philosophy of spiritual 
intercourse as understood by some of our most able, 
enlightened and scientific minds, as well as by myself; 
and if you feel but half the interest in it that you 
should, or that I feel, I advise you to obtain these 
works and study them, for their profound philosophy 
requires study; and not only them, but also procure 
others, both for and against the new philosophy, for Ave 
cannot arrive at truth on a controverted question with- 
out thorough investigation of both sides — though I 
confess, and I am proud I can in truth make the con- 
fession, thi t I have ever felt an intuition of the truth 
and sublimity of this philosophy. Now as to the in- 
formation thus conveyed through this spirital agency : 
First, that we are beyond incertitude or doubt immor- 
tal ; that our immortality is demonstrated by ocular, 
tangible, positive proof; that this immortality consi is 
of our very hsecceity, our real personal self, our loves, 
friendships, memories, knowledge, intelligence. And 
science proves that we must take these with us or we 
take nothing, for nothing of ourself remains more than 
seven years, except these moral memories, these spirit- 
ual principles. We retain them here through all our 
years — shall we lose them there ? They constitute our 
personality, our haecceity here ; if Ave do not take them, 
what Avill constitute us there ? That Ave shall recog- 
nize each other by physical features and form unchanged, 
but refined and improved by the shaking off of the old 
clay covering; and shall unerringly know eacE other by 
spirit acting direct upon spirit, without obstruction, or 
deception, of animal co\ r ering and deceitful flesh ; hy- 
pocrisy Avill lose its mark. Second, that our present 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 233 

plane of existence being one and' the first of seven, there 
are six concentric circles, zones, or spheres around us, 
each rising higher above the other in the blue ether ; 
the first commencing about fifty miles above us, where 
our atmosphere is supposed by some to cease, but which 
I suppose has no definitive bounds, but is gradually 
merged and lost in the bright circumambient realm of 
pure and spotless spirituality. That these spheres thus 
near and adjacent to us, with a connecting and continu- 
ous element of intercourse and intercommunication, are 
the bright abodes of our departed friends and all pro- 
gressed excarnated men and women. That we enter 
those spheres just as we leave this plane, with our vices 
or virtues, ignorance or intelligence ; with every fea- 
ture and lineament of face and limb, as developed in 
the body; the same form and configuration in the 
spiritualized state, of which in fact the body was the 
mere visible representative, and from which took its 
form ; with personal identity and individuality intact 
and uncharged. That the first of these spheres next 
adjoining our present rudi mental plane is comparatively 
dark and imperfect, a Gehenna, Hades, Sheol, Tarta- 
rus, or Hell, in which all unprogressed, low, ignorant, 
vicious, wicked spirits, of men congregate by a natural 
affinity or spiritual gravitation. That this region is 
thus dark — I give it as my philosophy of the fact — 
because intermediate from the earth plane where phys- 
ical light is produced by atmospheric undulations, and 
the higher spheres where purer light is the result of a 
spiritual illumination. Beyond our atmosphere is 
probably no physical, but all spiritual light, increasing 
as we leave the earth's, opaque surface. That the more 



^34 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

progressed and enlightened, the true and the good, 
with angelic aspirations, will be attracted to the second 
or higher spheres, suited to their tastes, capacities, con- 
genialities and developments. That progress, univer- 
sal progress, all working a perfect optimism, is God's 
grand, primordial, fundamental law, by which the 
wicked and low in the first sphere will gradually im- 
prove and unfold into higher spheres of intelligence 
and happiness ; and that all will progress and develop 
into new beatitudes, new grandeurs and new glories, 
ever enjoying without satiety, ever ascending without 
exhaustion, forever fed and sustained by the all-prolifi© 
fountain of al spirit, the eternal Father. O, what a 
sublime philosophy is this for the vision of the soul ! 
what a happy consolation, an ever-present bliss always 
welling up in the heart of the good and the true, the 
pure and the splendid and may be poor and despised 
in the view of the vain — and there are millions such in 
this death-drifting stream of time — to contemplate and 
hope for, aye, to feel an assurance of and to knoio this 
immortal heaven as the heritage of eternity. A horn® 
of happiness unalloyed, of purity unspotted, mind im- 
maculate, and of eternal, expanding, progressive, 
boundless felicity. The bruised and broken heart healed 
.and made whole; loved and long-lost friends regained-;' 
cherished friendships of the buried years of time re- 
claimed ; sacred associations, hallowed memories re- 
vived to burn on imperishable altars ; tender feelings, 
!blasted hopes, deep devoted love of children, kindred, 
friends and families and all the splendid affections of 
the human soul divine, that glow like jewels in this 
dim old casket of earth, shall be restored, leunited, 



PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 235 

gathered up to the fountains of the Father, and kin- 
dled with the new lustre of immortal glory. O, the 
rapturous, transporting joy of this heavenly reunion! 
Perhaps, when we leave our tenantless body and look 
back at our friends of earth weeping over the cold 
casket, the first to hail us at the portals of those blest 
abodes will be a cherub child, whose prattling ceased 
on earth ere it felt the stain of sin, or learned a sigh of 
sorrow ; or a loved, adored, long-lost mother's voice 
that so often soothed our little storms of trouble, and 
who so many a time and oft, bedewed our infant pillow 
with tears that none but she could shed, will be the 
first to welcome and embrace in that radiant realm of 
love. These are some of the beatitudes of this heaven 
promised in this scientific revelation to the honest, and 
energetic, and true. And the unsullied atmosphere of 
intellect, unfettered from the flesh, intellect disencum- 
bered and eliminated from the gross manacles of this 
animal world — to move in mind, mind mutually mir- 
rored in its majesty — creation mapped before us with 
its myriad suns and systems that constitute the great 
dome of God's universe, all radiant with the luminous 
beams of infinite wisdom that pervade the outskirts of 
creation, and the whole a splendid panorama of enrap- 
tured vision : these are some of the privileges and 
pleasures which shall doubtless be fully realized by the 
exalted denizens of these glorious mansions of immor- 
tality. 

I let imagination wing me down the distant stream 
of future time and through a vista of prophetic ken 
limn the lineaments of unborn centuries, and behold 
the august procession of the solemn centuries, the reti- 



236 Philosophy of life* 

nue of time, by which we mark the circling cycles of 
duration. See again I the continents are reticulated 
with the electric telegraph and with a retiform network 
for the thoroughfare of thought it girdles the globe. 

Aerial palaces, constructed of a new and burnished 
metal, aluminum, extracted everywhere from common 
clay, with the strength of iron, but small specific grav- 
ity and conducting powers, navigate the circumambient 
ocean of air, propelled by lightning. Palatial man- 
sions made of the same universal and abundant mate- 
rial, free from oxydation and corrosion, and imperisha- 
ble, stud the land like the stellar gems set around the 
sky. New and improved types of man inhabit th<? 
earth, and hold constant communion with the spirit 
spheres. The orbitual eclipse of our earth has gradu- 
ally lessened from its original cometic condition of ex- 
treme ellipticity, both orbicular and orbitual, until it 
has become a perfect circle, and now the globe, like 
ripe fruit, glows in perennial spring ; and the monthly 
revolution of the globe instead of diurnal, and the ab- 
sence of physical light and heat from the contracted 
sun and spheres is succeeded by spiritual illumination 
and the normal mental and temperamental temperature 
of a perfect and permanent equilibration. The cessa- 
tion of solar radiation, the result of completed contrac- 
tion, equalises the seasons, and the poles, and the equa- 
tor become isothermal. Under the talismanic touch 
of science and its magic ameliorations, in the process 
called death, in the dissolution from his second mother, 
like that from his first, man passes the portal without 
a pang. The Malthusian ideas promulged and little 
heeded in the 19th century, are proven both practical 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 237 

and practicable, indeed are practicalized and practiced, 
for the philosophy of reproduction and science of gen- 
eration are understood, controlled and adapted to earth's 
increased but crowded capacities. Men quietly and of 
choice, by mere will, leave their mortal tabernacles, or 
lie down and die like going to sleep. Under the 
mighty ameliorations of progressive science and the 
weird of spiritual inspiration, the personal equanimity 
and happiness of a perfect eupepsy, hath taken the 
place of the irritability and misery of old-time dyspep- 
sia ; and the political stability and felicity of a perfect 
eunomy and isonomy hath succeeded the turbulence 
and terror of old and obsolete dysnomy, the great prin- 
ciple of autonomy is vindicated, and despotism is un- 
known. The gallows and the jail, signs of antique 
civilization, have given place to the school-house and 
the lecture-room or lyceum. Nearly all our maladies 
are found to originate in tne nervous system as being 
the most refined of all our organic elements, and there- 
fore more liable to become deranged by contact with 
this rudimental corporeity, and magnetism or electricity, 
positive or negative, the remedy. Noxious plants *and 
venomous reptiles have disappeared — mephitic exhala- 
tions have dried up — death-dealing drugs and drug 
doctors have died out, and are remembered only in the 
satire of song — the spouting politician and his loved 
acclamations and conclamations of the vulgar rabble 
have vanished in distant echo, and live only in the exe- 
crations of history — hotsam and jetsam, scutage and 
tithe, probation and purgation, legal, theological and 
medical, have grown grim in the dim distance of olden 
time — dogmatic dysnomy is swept away — pragmatic 



238 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 

preaching lias played out— and faith is lost in philoso- 
phy. The hero-worship of unfeathered geese, and silly 
gallantry of gallinaceous cocks which spoil the women 
and hence also the men, have become antiquated cus- 
toms of disgust. The " profession of arms/' which 
made machines of many men to bleed barbaric glory 
for the favored few, has now become a bloody barbar- 
ism of weak and vain ambition ; and valor is a virtue 
only as moral heroism represses wrong and vindicates- 
right by its own inherent, fearless fortitude — fearless 
of others' opinions. The world is nationalized, and 
for local judicatories to adjudicate individual differences 
and vindicate personal rights, there are instituted by 
the people elective syndic councils, which also are the 
electors of a college from whom is selected and com- 
posed a grand ecumenical witenagemote or amphicty- 
onic congress to determine the differences of State mu- 
nicipalities and national sovereignties.. Time was 
when a single individual murder was a crime and 
properly punished, but national wholesale slaughter, at 
the behests of ambitious political demagogues, and for 
the glory of diabolical despots, was legitimate and hon- 
orable ; now the magnitude of these wholesale murders 
is comprehended, and popular intelligence has provided 
commensurate safeguards and universal protection 
against the unprogressed of any number. An ecu- 
menic Qrotona, a world-wide, an universal Utopia pic- 
tured by the splendid Pythagoras in the early annals of 
time, is now fully developed and realized. The early 
labors ofGrotius and Yattel on the Jus Gentium have 
grown and culminated into an universal Crotona. 
Moore's Utopian island has expanded and extended 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 239 

until all national heterogeneities are harmonized into 
one universal happy homogeneity. With a spirit of 
emulation every municipal community studies electric- 
ity as the science of the soul and the philosophy of life. 
Ever and anon new truths are elicited, new grandeurs 
evolved, new lights leap forth to lend to love a higher 
hope and higher heaven. This science of the spirit, 
this philosophy of life — it has sounded a new harmony 
in the symphonies of creation and robed in radiance 
the dark old centuries. From its grand natal day in 
its native America, where magnetism has its strongest 
pole, where liberty is leagued with law, and science 
sways the trident of empire, it learned the lightning, 
and with electric keys unlocked the chambers of angelic 
life and spoke with the spirits of the spheres. It hath 
lettered the lightning's wing and bid it speed o'er the 
peopled earth that all may read the immortality of 
their love. 

It has gilded the sea-girt isle of Britain and made 
her great pulsations beat the march of immortal life to 
the nations of men, through the vibrations of her great 
commercial arteries. 

France, from the dark December of her destiny, has 
come forth clothed in the green garniture of this bloom- 
ing Spring time; and the hope of life, like a bird of 
paradise, rises from the ruins of her Bastile. 

Italy, the land of love, of liberty and of song, beholds 
a new lustre in her cerulean sky. 

The Panhellenium of old Greece that used to ringi 
with the thunders of Pericles, the eloquence of, iHs- 
chines and the philipics of, Demosthenes, has, ?igaii\. 
quickened with a new vitality. 
11* 



240 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

Cold, frigid, ice-bound, soul-bound Russia catcher 
the faint echoes that reverberate from the mountains of 
her Caucasus and Obossia ; and the mighty iceberg of 
her people has melted and become warm under the 
genial rays of the new dispensation. 

The land of philosophy, mystic Germany, whose fer- 
tile mind gave birth to the mighty engine which gives 
wings to wisdom that it may fly to every home and 
hamlet on earth; makes knowledge public property 
that all may obtain, and renders her springs imperish- 
able ; a chariot whose wheels are winged with lightning 
that the revelation of a heaven may fly and spread over 
the earth like the electric clouds that mantle her canopy, 
and become as ubiquitous as its God — lives and feasts 
on this grand philosophy. 

Continental Europe is vocal with the melodies and 
rings out the echoes of this spirit reveille from a thou- 
sand mountains and valleys ; while her old desolated 
plains, erstwhile crimsoned with the gore of a thousand 
battles, are bloooming all over with this rose of the 
^celestial Sharon ; and from her slain in battle, now im- 
paradised above, has sprung the spirit of peace to still 
the tocsin of war. The night has rolled away, the 
morning's broke and gilds the eastern hill-tops. 

Poor, pitied, benighted Africa holds out her helpless 
hands, and lo ! her native jungles resound with the 
shouts of her unfortunate children just stepping on this 
new threshold of life. 

Old Asia has awakened from her deep sleep of cen- 
turies and looks with wonder on this shining morning. 

The land of the Pyramids, with forty centuries upon 
her hoary brow, looks with love on this new era of 
human life. 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 241 

"The sealed casket of the Japanese heart is unlocked, 
sand the mist of its mind rolls up and melts away before 
=this bright star of eternity. 

And the Celestial Empire, the land of Confucius, that 
busy hive of Sabian beings, so long the sealed cemetery 
of a moral death that felt not the ponderous tread of 
centuries, nor ever heard the drum-beat of revolution 
within her massive walls until now, is energized and 
^quickened into life, and the heart of vitality now beats 
in the moss grown precincts of that ancient tomb. 

In the bosom of the Southern ocean a continent had 
slumbered in the silence of centuries; but now this 
large, last discovered habitation of man teems with 
new types of his happy children. Nor creeds, nor 
cross, crescent or crucifix, church fashion, Sunday-sham, 
sacrament, baptism, nor eucharistic blessing, nor pon- 
tiff, nor caliph, nor prelate, nor preacher, with the 
u imposition of hands " — aye, the imposition of all — 
Demiurgic Druid, Dominican Friar, Carthusian Monk, 
and all the anointed saints of official benefice — had ever 
cursed with their direful dogmas this antarctic conti- 
nent. No; all these had passed away to moulder 
among the dry bones of old superstitions, and art 
known only in the historic fables of earth's earlier ages. 
The life of true liberty and light, of philosophy, science 
and full freedom of conscience, is the native birth-right 
of this illumined and progressive people. The lettered 
lightning's wing of immortal life is full unfurled above 
her starry skies and voiced to happy millions the rap- 
turous refrain of angelic anthems. 

And everywhere, over all the gilded continents and 
jeweled isles, from the silvery-streameol sunrise to the 



242 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

golden-gated sunset, from the torrid zaharas of the 
equator to the icy mountains of either pole, we hear 
the roll of revolution — not that revolution which slays 
its thousands that a Caesar might be great — not the 
little drum-beat of bloody battle — but the full-toned 
thunder-roll of a revolution of the human soul, shaking 
off the shackles that bind it to the limits of earth, 
breaking loose the chains that drag it to the chariot 
wheels of death, asserting its divine fountain, claiming 
its divine destiny, laying its hold upon the pavilions of 
eternity and anchoring its hope within the storied, tem- 
ple of God's immortal heaven ! 

We leave the plane of earth and its mouldering urns — 
the sarcophagus and mausoleum of classic Greece and 
monumental Rome ; the catacombs of the Orientals 
and the tumuli of the Occidentals, and all this wide 
sepulchre of earth's 'ashes, every square foot of which 
has its silent dust of departed generations, which has 
mixed and intermixed, mingled and commingled, and 
fused and diffused and interfused into new animal or- 
ganizations. Our own dust, erstwhile the proud habi- 
tations of ourselves, since wafted by wind and wave to 
diverse- and distant points, now enters into the corpo- 
real composition of other men and constitutes their 
living tenements. We leave these mouldering urns of 
mutation and transmutation, and sail the celestial ether 
of the* spirit spheres. Where atmospheric air attenuant 
mingles into ether, we enter the first sphere of disem- 
bodied spirits. Here the low, the groveling and un- 
progressed, since their earthly elimination, begin to 
imbibe those angelic influences which are to unfold 
them into fairer fields. Do we here find our friends ? 






PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 243. 

No; they have progressed and gone on higher. Up 
and onward we soar, passing the second, the third, the 
fourth, and entering the fifth and sixth spheres we pause 
in our onward flight. O, the mighty outburst of mag- 
nificence that greets our dazzled vision! Throughout 
our spheral flight from the second upward, what se- 
raphic melodies that pour upon the ravished ear, the 
anthemic raptures of immortal life and immortal love 
that gush from beatific millions imparadised in these 
radiant realms of love, with powers of progression ex- 
panding into new orders of being — as we rise from 
sphere to sphere — new developments of might and 
magnificence, new altitudes of intellect to soar up and 
on, and heights upon heights of mind ethereal, seraphic 
and sublime, as alps on alps arise, and new extensions 
of intelligencies to tower anon and forever toward the 
Godhead; the full-toned chorus of enrapturing glory 
that rolls up and reverberates along the illimitable ex- 
panse of the celestial star-gemmed canopy; and the 
angelic hierarchies that rise higher and higher in 
boundless expansion, order upon order in endless suc- 
cession as seraph realms around the eternal central 
throne ; until at a far off epoch in future eternity the 
lower spheres appear as distant creations of dim splen- 
dor. In these blest abodes, in these vast elysian fields, 
among these angelic hosts, we see our friends of other 
years in the calendar of time. Long, long ago they 
passed the portals of earthly elimination, and have pro- 
gressed from sphere to sphere in purity and perfection. 
Some yet linger in the second, some are in the third,, 
others have attained the fourth, and a few bask in the 
beatific blaze of the fifth supernal sphere. Methinks I 



244 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

see glorious old Socrates and just below him his faithful 
friend Crito. The immortal Milton, too, and Franklin, 
'and Washington, and a countless host of earth's purest, 
best, spirits of power, purity and perfection. I think 
I see some of you, my best and truest friends of old 
earth, unfolding in this elysian eden with your fathers 
and families in full felicity. I also see, O happy vis- 
ion! my long-lost mother, who never knew me on the 
earth plane but an infant ; my revered father; and my 
loved babes whom I never knew but as babes, now full 
grown men and developed angels, with all their loved 
lineaments of feature and form unchanged, who have 
all gone before me, and all together now, living on 
love, and waiting patiently to welcome me to their full- 
flowing fountains of felicity. O, glorious God of crea- 
tion ! where is the bound to thy power, perfections and 
love ? Would we on tireless wing assay to soar still 
higher in the bright ethereal blue ? No ; here is full- 
ness enough, and overflowing beyond our capacities, 
expanded as they are ; and the electro-ether beyond is 
too refined for the Icarian waxen wings of earth, and 
our pinions fail. The transcendent glories that gather 
there preclude all but archangels' highest development, 
and silence sits upon our tongues; our wild words fail, 
and language sinks without a syllable. The transcend- 
ent splendor, the supernal sublimity of mind, the grand 
galaxy of glories gathered in those central solar realms 
where the swift-winged comets, those fiery flambeaux, 
God's telegraphic messengers of the skies, receive their 
elect rc-magnetie charge to equalize the universe, and 
where the seraphim and archangel pluck the central 
*uns to deck the diadem of Deity. But language sinks 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 245 

powerless, and imagination overwhelmed, shrinks back 
exhausted, and returns again to its native tenement of 
old earth to take the dull realities as they are presented 
in our plodding plane of this nineteenth century, and 
wait impatiently till the stream of nature's destiny 
drifts us to those sublime scenes we have been viewing 
and depicting: Enough to startle into life the dull ear 
of death, and make vitality spring forth rejuvenated 
from the cold casket of the tomb; enough to voice in 
song all the tongues of nature, to make her mountains 
clap their hands in joy, and the grand organ of ocean 
hymn anthems of adoration ! 

Of the earth's internal ocean of molten matter we 
know little or nothing; and of life beyond the seventh 
spiritual sphere we are equally ignorant ; but between 
these, positive science has taught us the philosophy of 
our life, which is the philosophy of nature. We learn 
that the concentric realms encircling round above us 
teem with the angelic life of all earth's past generations, 
as the earth below us in its every fluid, liquid and solid 
atoms teems with infusorial life — all tendin to, 
people the spheres with spiritual intelligencies. From 
this internal central mass, constituting our globe or its 
crust, ascending outward, first comes the solid, hard 
primitive granite, the rocks ; next the less hard iron, 
the metals; next the less solid mineral earths; next 
the still less solid soils ; next the more fluid water ; 
next the still more fluid atmosphere; and this becomes 
more attenuant and refined as we ascend, until lost in 
super-refined magnetic fluid and celestial ether : from 
original incondensed to solid, then liquid, aeriform, 
and ethereal. And everything from the aboriginal 



246 PHTLOSOPP. 7 OF LIFE. 

plutonic granite, is evolving something higher ; and all 
ultimating in immortal man ; thus the rocks into met- 
als; the metals into mineral earths; these into soils; 
these into vegetation ; vegetation into animal life ; and 
this through various grades to its highest type, man, 
susceptible of this immortal principle of evolution into 
higher spiritual spheres — susceptible of those high 
principles of love and spiritual felicity that give him a 
desire for immortality and invest him with the nature 
and character of God and his children ; and thus ca- 
pacitated and endued we will live on in our loves as 
long as God shall live, through eternity, ever unfold- 
ing into new felicities. And all conscious mind or 
immortal spirit, by the same philosophy, rises into 
more rarified and ethereal regions, because more subli- 
mated and ethereal itself than the grosser and more 
ponderous matter below it ; and the altitude and purity 
of this region, in which it will locate under this same 
law, will be in proportion to its ow T n ethereality and 
purity ; and not stopping here, still under this unceas- 
ing philosophy and ever-working and universal law of 
evolution will become yet more sublimated, and rise 
and continue to rise to higher altitudes of ethereality, 
purity and ultimate perfection. What then ? you may 
ask : finite knowledge cannot answer : perhaps ab- 
sorbed in the Godhead. Then you may say our con- 
scious individuality, our cherished hascceity, will be 
lost. iSTot necessarily so : the God may be thus indi- 
vidualized and immortalized into His own hsecceity, 
from the multitude of spiritualities below Him, just as 
these were individualized into their hsecceity from the 
multitude of inorganic atoms below them : and all na- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 247 

ture thus ultimating in tliis grand Deific concentration 
and centralization of immortal haecceities. But this is 
running into mere speculation beyond the philosophy 
of human science. This is the end and aim and object 
of our life, the grand purpose of this mundane nature, 
viz : to unfold higher forms and evolve higher princi- 
ples into higher realms and altitudes of ethereality, 
spirituality, intellectuality, immortality and perfected 
felicity. From this primary and fundamental philoso- 
phy of our life we derive a supervenient philosophy of 
practical ethics for our every day feelings and personal 
deportment, viz : that we always preserve and main- 
tain a perfect equanimity of temper and uniformity of 
character, because we should always feel a perfect com- 
posure and resignation, contentment and happiness ; 
and we should ever thus feel, because we know that 
every seeming adversity, disappointment, suffering, or 
sorrow, is but transient, and will soon pass away ; that 
they are but the earthly soil from which the rose of 
immortal life will spring and blossom forever; that all 
our sufferings can but end in dissolution, from which 
we shall rise in renewed vigor, purity, beauty and per- 
fection, with all our loved lineaments and memories 
retained and improved and progressed into higher 
spheres of happiness. That we should live as we wish 
to- die, in the sweet serenity and certainty of undying 
reunion ; and not as Zeno lived, like a stoic, and met 
death like an animal or a stone ; nor as Bolingbroke 
lived in doubt and,, according to some biographers, died 
with frantic fear and remorse; nor the ereed-cursec} 
Christian with interminable hell and everlasting dam-, 
nation before his tortured vision; nor as Cromwell 



248 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

died, an angry ocean lashing in fury the shores of his 
sea-girt isle, while his stormy spirit stepped into eter- 
nity ; nor as Napoleon lived in the storm of Avar, and 
on his rock-ribbed, ocean-bound prison of Helena, died 
in the delirium of battle, with nature's elements howl- 
ing his dirge during his death, and singing a wild-wind 
requiem as his grand serenade out of time, with " Tete 
de armee " last upon his lips : For us, be our exit from 
these shores of sorrow, calm, tranquil and serene as the 
zephyrs of a spirit morn ; if 

"An angel's arm can't snatch us from the tomb, 
Legions of angels cant confine us there;''' 

that our friends behind may sing of us, 

"Night dews fall not more gently to the ground, 
Nor weary, worn-out winds expire so soft." 

" "Tis the last pang, he calmly said, 

To me, O death ! thou hast no dread- 
Father I come ! 

.Spread but thiue arms on yonder shore — 

I see ! ye waters bear me o'er : 

There is my home V 

I speak of death — pardon me and pardon my thana- 
topsis — there is no such thing, no such principle, posi- 
tive or negative, no such operation, active or passive, as 
death in its usual acceptation, throughout God's crea- 
tion. Nothing can die but that which has personal 
consciousness, which is self-knowledge. All animal 
and vegetable creations undergo change, mutation, 
metamorphosis, continually, in the economy of nature; 
but this is not death to them, for they have not this 
personal consciousness or knowledge of life or death, 
though it appears so to us who have this knowledge. 
Man is the only creation of our principial plane of 
earth, capable of comprehending life and death, and if 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 249 

he were to cease to exist, this would be death; but this 
very self-conscious personality with which he is en- 
dowed or endued is the principle of immortal life that 
assimilates him to the angels and connects him with the 
creator. The animal and the vegetable consist of cer- 
tain combinations of certain elements in certain propor- 
tions which make certain forms of animal or vegetable ; 
and this form of animal or vegetable is as unconscious 
of life, as a boon or principle of existence, as the ele- 
ments were before their combination into the organic 
form. As chlorate of potash, fulminate of mercury, by 
percussion, vor saltpetre, and sulphur and charcoal, or 
cotton steeped in nitric and sulphuric acids, by a spark 
of fire or electricity, will exert a pressure, the former of 
1000 lbs. and the latter 800 lbs. per square inch ; or 
chloride of nitrogen in another combination will ex- 
plode by the application of a drop of oil, with a pressure 
not computed, so much greater than all others — all 
inert without the combination — and all vanish after 
their displosion. So the animal and vegetable after 
their ephemeral life in physiology, but not as evanescent 
in their action as the former in chemistry, dissolve 
away and back into their original elements which, as 
elementary principles, exist forever, and enter again 
into new organic combinations, but all unconscious of 
their metamorphoses : just as the physical constitution 
or organization of man is unconscious of its continual 
aggregation and segregation, integration and disinte- 
gration — unconscious of the constant destruction, coun- 
tervailed by as constant construction, of every bone, 
blood, tissue and integument of his corporeal tenement. 
True the undeveloped infant is unconscious as the 



i^50 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

brute, but the subnascent germ is there, as the germ of 
the oak is in the acorn, and will develop the tree of 
immortal life, independent of the bodily organism 
which may go to ruins, imbibing its vital principle of 
development from the spiritual ether above, just as the 
acorn will develop into the oak, independent of the 
body of the parent tree which may go to ruins, imbibing 
its vital, or rather organic principle from the earth of 
heat and moisture below, No; there is no death in 
nature : God has given unconscious organizations to 
unconsciously perish or again disorganize, for the pur- 
pose of ultimating a high and superior being of conscious 
life ; but this conscious life He never gave for a conscious 
death. We must and shall be born again — a spiritual 
birth — and the parturition of this second birth, like the 
first, may under the meliorations of science now, and 
yet to come, be in comparative ease and quietude, or 
under ignorance in travail and agony. From the 
inexorable logic of science and all nature's analogies 
relative and correlative, we derive this lesson of sur- 
passing comfort, that we shall not die, but shall be born 
again into a higher world of light, life and love. The 
moment of our dissolution is but the short midnight 
between the cloudy evening of our infantile earthly life, 
and the bright morning of our developed heavenly life. 
Silvered over with the lights of science is death's dark 
doorway which but opens into the lighted chambers of 
life in truth. We do not, as Bryant says, "wrap the 
drapery of our couch around us and lie down to 
dreams;" but we throw off the drapery of death, shake 
off the couch, and rise up to glorious reality. 

" Is it his death-bed ? No, it is his shrine : 
Behold him there just rising to a god." 



PHILOSOPHY OF LTFE 25. t 

Another very common, though less important error, 
I'll notice in this connection : It is generally believed 
that heat is the condition and even test of life, whereas 
the contrary is the real truth. Heat is the result of 
oxydation, or decay and decomposition; and where 
this oxydizing, dissolving process is not going on, no 
heat is evolved or perceived — the elements of heat, or 
whatever evolves it, for heat itself is not an element — 
may, in a dormant condition called latent heat, be there 
and everywhere for aught we know ; but no heat is 
evolved or perceived, except in the process of oxy elation. 
And beyond our atmosphere through which the rays or 
emissions of the physical sun undulate and produce or 
evolve heat, it must, according to my philosophy, be 
comparatively cold and of uniform temperature, not 
subject to the climatic fluctuations of our atmosphere; 
and the spiritual residents of those relatively cold and 
etherco-electric climes should also be cold, %. e., evolve 
no heat to our present perceptions, as they are not- 
subject to our material oxydation — if they were they 
could not be immortal. Now all those in this rudi- 
mental sphere of flesh who have touched and felt their 
excarnated spirit friends, invariably represent them as 
cold to their present feelings. Moreover, the estimated 
temperature of the planetary spaces is, 58° F., accord- 
ing to men of science. Our present normal tempera- 
ture, be it remembered, is 98 F., 156° higher. Thus 
the uneducated medium announces and attests the truths 
of science. A profound philosophy is here. 

As giving additional authority to this philosophy 
which I have but adumbrated, an extract from Herbert 
Spencer's "First Principles of a New Philosophy," just 



252 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

published, is here inserted : " And here remains to be 
added the further corollary, that just as in the case of 
the smaller members of the solar system, the heat 
generated by concentration, long ago in great part, 
radiated into space, has left only a central residue that 
now escapes but slowly; so in the case of that im- 
mensely larger mass forming the sun, the immensely 
greater quantity of heat generated and still in process 
of rapid diffusion,, must, as the concentration approaches 
its limit, diminish in amount, and eventually leave 
only an inappreciable internal remnant. With or 
without the accompaniment of that hypothesis of nebu- 
lar condensation, whence, as we see, it naturally follows, 
the doctrine that the sun is gradually losing his heat, 
has now gained considerable currency ; and calculations 
have been made, both respecting the amount of heat 
and light already radiated, as compared with the amount 
that remains, and respecting the period during which 
active radiation is likely to continue. Prof. Helmholtz 
estimates, that since the time when, according to the 
nebular hypothesis, the matter composing the solar 
system extended to the orbit of Neptune, there has been 
evolved by the arrest of sensible motion, an amount of 
heat 454 times as great as that which the sun still has 
to give out. He also makes an approximate estimate 
of the rate at which this remaining l-454th is being 
diffused : showing that a diminution of the sun's diame- 
ter to the extent of 1-10,000, would produce heat, at 
the present rate, for more than 2000 years i or in other 
words, that a contraction of 1-20,000,000 of his diame- 
ter, suffices to generate the amount of light and heat 
annually emitted ; and that thus, at the present rate of 



Philosophy of life. 253 

expenditure, the sun's diameter will diminish by some- 
thing like 1-20 in the lapse of the next million years.* 
Of coarse these conclusions are not to be considered as 
more than rude approximations to the truth. Until 
quite recently, we have been totally ignorant of the 
sun's chemical composition; and even now have ob- 
tained but a superficial knowledge of it. We know 
nothing of his internal structure; and it is quite possi- 
ble (probable, I believe,) that the assumptions respect- 
ing central density, made in the foregoing estimates, 
are wrong. But no uncertainty in the data on which 
these calculations proceed, and no consequent error in 
the inferred rate at which the sun is expending his 
reserve of force, militates against the general proposi- 
tion that this reserve of force is being expended ; and 
must in time be exhausted. Though the residue of 
undiffused motion in the sun may be much greater 
than is above concluded; though the rate of radiation 
cannot, as assumed, continue at a uniform rate, but 
must eventually go on with slowly decreasing rapidity ; 
and though the period at which the sun will cease to 
afford us adequate light and heat, is very possibly far 
more distant than above implied; yet such a period 
must sometime be reached, and this is all which it 
here concerns us to observe." — " It has been con- 
tended, by Prof. Helmholtz, that inappreciable as may 
be its effect within known periods of time,, the friction 
of the tidal wave must be slowly diminishing the earth's 
rotary motion, and must eventually destroy it. Now 



*See paper "On the Inter-action Natural Forces," by Prof. Helmholtz, trans- 
lated by Prof. Tyndall, and published in the Philosophical Magazine, supple- 
ment to Vol. XI. fourth series. 



254 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 

though it seems an oversight to say that the earth's 
rotation can thus be destroyed, since the extreme effect, 
to be reached only in infinite time by such a process, 
would be an extension of the earth's day to the length 
of a lunation; yet it seems clear that this friction of 
the tidal wave is a real cause of decreasing' rotation. 
Slow as its action is, we must recognize it as exempli- 
fying, under another form, the universal progress 
towards equilibrium." 

Thus it is perceived the profound philosophy, the 
germ or shadow of which I foresaw, is evolved into 
plausible verisimilitude if not absolute verity, by 
cotemporaneous intellectual students of both celestial 
and terrestrial physics. Now, as this state of our 
planet is approached, without physical heat and physical 
light, its inhabitants, under the great law of evolution 
or progression, will attain that condition of spiritual 
differentiation and development as to require neither 
physical heat nor physical light — thus evincing the 
wonderful wisdom, power and beneficence of the 
universal God. As for the diminution in velocity of 
the earth's axial rotation, or the extension of our day 
of 24 hours into 30 days, it will amount to nothing for 
the same reasons just stated. Everything is elaborating 
mutual adaptation and will culminate in permanent 
equilibration. 

Bat with the moral summary of our practical lesson, 
anon : That we should strive for improvement, moral, 
mental, physical, and be kind, charitable and sympa- 
thetic with each other, crushing every impulse of anger 
and cherishing every impulse of love; knowing that 
we all here inherit the same or equal frailties, and that 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 255 

others too have their wrongs, which are parts of our 
patrimony we cannot help, nor the creator himself 
avoid, but which will all be ultimately purged off under 
His great law of progression ; that those we hear of as 
so great and good become less so as intimate acquain- 
tance discloses weakness and bad traits; and also those 
reputed as weak and bad improve as acquaintance dis- 
covers traits of goodness and mentality — in short, that 
none are so good and so great, or so bad and so simple 
as we hear; that intercourse tends to equalize, as also 
all knowledge and progression; that the bubble of 
popular reputation floats with fortuities and is quick- 
ened and sustained by adventitious circumstances ; and 
that we shall yet all meet in realms unfringed with 
wrong, where we shall truly know each other by an 
unerring aromal emanation, or electric radiation, or 
magnetic effluxion, for mind will then act upon and 
perceive mind direct, unencumbered with gross inter- 
vening animal sensoria. And the anguish of parting 
from a loved friend— O, this is the bitterest word of 
my language, the bitterest moment of my life — parting, 
parting from my loved — forever ! 

Great God ! who can stand it? No: thanks to His 
philosophy of our life ; but for a few fleeting moments, 
mere dewdrops of time to the vast ocean of eternity, in 
which we will all meet and live in love where parting 
shall be known no more. For this, O Great Architect 
of creation's temple, I would send a shout of gratitude 
and glory to ring and echo along thy grand aisles and 
corridors through all the eternal world I I part from 
you to-morrow— -leave a more congenial people for a 
more congenial climate—this my last speech is but a 
friend's farewell— Forever ? Way 12 



256 PHILOSOPHY OF LTFE. 

" Congenial spirits part to meet again." 

Bid Campbell comprehend the glorious truth he thus 
enunciated in his mellifluent verse? Yes, to meet 
again, to meet again ! friends forever ! O, the heavenly 
hallelujahs that reverberate along the vaulted spheres 
and peopled worlds, and echo from all the orbs of light 
that spangle this vast vault around us, teeming with 
intelligencies imparadised in eternity. Not an ecclesi- 
astical Jubilate Deo for " the plan of salvation," which 
is but a more pleasing term for the plan of damnation ; 
but a grand gush of gratitude that swells the sympho- 
nies of all His immortal creations for the glorious plan 
of progression that leads us to the radiant realms of His 
own glory, the glory of universal and immortal love. 
And yet this sublime science that thus traces our 
origin, and opens the portals of our glorious destiny of 
reunion, and gives us the cream of our conduct and 
daily happiness, is assailed and opposed with energy 
and malignity. This opposition consists of two classes 
and motives : those who really and ardently desire and 
believe it to be true, and fearing the wish is father to 
the thought, oppose it with the sole view of eliciting 
more light in order to have all their doubts dispelled 
to their entire satisfaction ; and those who do not desire 
it to be true or to be accepted, because it will wofully 
interfere with the fleshpots that keep fat on their dog- 
mas — it is this class that evince such malignity. As 
for the many articles published in the hebdomadal 
press of the day, casting odium or derision on spiritual 
mediums — many of whom also deserve it — it is gener- 
ally done to please the people and pander to their igno- 
rant prejudices, and thus promote the popularity of the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 257 

paper; often at the expense and sacrifice of truth. I 
know editors who do this and secretly laugh at the 
ignorance of their readers, and who believe in the truth 
and the science, and admire the grandeur of the philos- 
ophy. And so they praise a popular man with prestige 
and position, whom they heartily hate. They lack the 
nerve to stem the popular current, which it is the duty 
of every journalist to direct, and not float with it. 
There is another class who are totally indifferent, and 
are actuated by two different motives : first, because 
they have no higher aspirations than the prosperity of 
their potato patch, or cotton field, counter or card-table ; 
second, those that have immortal longings, but fear " it 
is too good to be true," and being cold and calculating 
themselves they feel safe if it is true, and if not true 
had better stick to old faith as the safer course, ugly as 
it is, thus governed alone by the selfish impulse of fear, 
with no feeling of philanthropy to proclaim the glorious 
truth to their fellow men. For myself, true to my 
instincts, my inspirations and my impulses, I shall pro- 
claim this glorious philosophy through print as well as 
speech to my fellow men. I'll make the paper speak, 
the silent types vocal with love, and every page elo- 
quent of immortality. I have reached the time of life 
and amount of experience and misfortune, that my 
heart has become callous to the simple, silly sayings o 
those vain, unprogressed around and below me, re- 
gardless of all connections ; my ambition has bounded 
beyond the reach of envious ignorance, and finds its 
gratulations among the intelligential and progressed 
my aspirations soar above the sounds of senseless, soul- 
less gossip of human animals, and find a full fruition in 



258 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

the fountains that flow through the realms of immortal 
mind. I have suffered so much unkindncss ; injustice 
and wrongs at the hands, too, most frequently, of such 
low, inferior beings, that I feel reckless of at least their 
approbation, and all their kith, so closely kin to the 
porcine species that know no gratitude, and are incapa- 
ble of progress. They look up at me and think they 
are looking down ; they know not the direction of up 
or down, and cannot apprehend, much less comprehend, 
and still less appreciate, the idea of moral altitude; 
they sprout, vegetate and rot where they were planted, 
or live, flourish and fail v T here they were born, mor- 
ally. Swine will never exchange a wallow for a par- 
lor — there it was raised and there it will remain ; nor 
would the ignorant herd of biped genus homo exchange 
their finical parlors of animal gab and gossip for the 
cerebral halls of intellectual immortalities ; there they 
were reared and there they would remain. Panoplied 
in truth and always a devoted worshipper at its altar, with 
all my faults and misfortunes, my sins and my sorrows, 
and they are not few; prompted in my every impulse 
by hoaesty and sincerity, and with such friends as you 
who know me welk I fear not the fumes of falsehood, 
or venomous vituperation, nor much regard popular 
opinion, public or private. Enough of this — Pm sorry 
for human nature. I cannot withhold this healing 
balm to the bleeding hearts of my friends, this ineffable 
comfort for the sorrowing souls of those who can ap- 
preciate and appropriate it, when by a little effort it is 
within my power to impart it. For even if it be false 
we are thus made happy here, and shall never wake 
aip hereafter to know 7 or realize its falsity. As for the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 259 

interminable hell, that old orthodoxy would have catch 
me for thus proclaiming this happy philosophy, I spurn 
the degrading idea that I should for a moment invest 
the character of my creator with the diabolic cruelty of 
thus punishing me forever for not believing in this 
very diabolism, or for believing in a philosophy that 
while it gives a glory to Him, also gives happiness to 
me. The fear of this interminable hell has crazed 
many a weak brain — and isn't it enough ? — and poured 
bitterness in the fountains of many a life stream on 
earth. Many a pitied parent has poured out a life in 
sorrow over the premature death of an adult uncon- 
verted child. What would heaven be, what could it 
be to such a parent with such a child in such a hell ? 
Let not this dread chimera disturb you, my friends : 
do eight and fear nothing; our God never 
made His children to be victims of fear, nor stamped 
eternity on misery : nor do II is works tend downwards ; 
and if your wicked child reach Gehenna, he will soon 
be lifted hence, and by the help of your own hands. 
So cheer thee, bleeding mother, devoted father ! thy 
loved child is not lost, nor can be, while God and His 
philosophy endure. We shall all soon fall into the 
embraces of a sweet sleep and serene slumber, from 
which nothing will ever disturb us ; or we shall wake 
up to meet our friends again in higher and happier 
realms of life and love. And let us fear not that this 
incessant stream from God's vast empire of life, forever 
pouring into those higher spheres, will at some period 
in future eternity, howsoever remote, ultimately fill 
them beyond capacity for more : for be it remembered, 
His infinity of domain is equal to His eternity of dura- 



260 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

tion : one is co-extensive with the other, and both illim- 
itable. And though we follow science as the footsteps 
of God, and would analyze the higher heavens, and 
anatomize archangel life, and analyze the deep arcana 
of all hereafter, we yet must know that mystery and 
wonder will ever rise above and hover around our 
heads as the sunlight dazzles our physical eyes. This 
is enough for the philosophic mind. 

Among the many theories invented to crush out this 
sublime science by which every man can learn and see 
for himself the positive demonstration of his own im- 
mortality with all his loved, independent of hierophan- 
tic officiation, was first, that it was "produced — I mean 
the physical manifestations — by the snapping of the 
knee and toe joints. This was ridiculous. Then next 
came the theory that it was all produced by the brain 
centres and nerve centres of minds in the body. This 
was more philosophical; but they were both soon 
abandoned. Next came the "pine table" epoch, orig- 
inating in the puritanical, fanatical, hypocritical, diabol- 
ical, for they are all inseparable if not synonyms, New 
York Tribune audits kindred sheets; but the " pine 
table" did more than was contracted for — it proved 
too much — it turned to talking : it was dropped as a 
child drops hot iron, instanter, and without being told. 
The "intellectual giant," Rev. Mahan, then entered 
the ring, but he was soon ruled out as doing the oppo- 
sition mischief, for he acknowledged the facts but failed 
to explain them. The learned Faraday spoke from 
across the water, and pronounced it the " involuntary 
contraction and motion of the muscles of the medium " — 
weak indeed for a savan ; but his theory, too, soon ex- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 261 

pired. Anon appeared the great Bovee Dods, with his 
psychological theory, the " front brain, back brain," 
etc. — the only rational theory yet presented : indeed it 
is through the principles of psychology that spirit in- 
tercourse is effected, the excarnated being one party 
and the incarnated the other, instead of both parties 
being incarnated; and it requires discrimination to 
know when the manifestations are really from the ex- 
carnated spirits instead of being a mere reflection of, or 
reflected image, or idea existing in some other mind 
present in the flesh. I now refer to the higher mental 
manifestations, not the physical. But Dods himself 
has surrendered his theory and embraced spiritual 
agency ; for he has witnessed a number of communica- 
tions that precluded any and every other hypothesis, 
and established in his opinion excarnated spirit inter- 
course. 

It is remarkable how rapidly all these various theo- 
ries in opposition to spirit agency have disappeared ; 
and how, soon as one theory was advanced, the mani- 
festations immediately ceased in that way and assumed 
another form ; and so throughout, as fast as new theo- 
ries were devised for their explanation, so fast they 
assumed new phases, as if to refute them. 

It is now styled, I believe, by its opposers, an inex- 
plicable intellectual epidemic — being inexplicable to 
them, it must be incredible to all. Now to the follow- 
ers of the Bible, of whatever name or creed, I will 
prove in few words and by the Bible itself, that modern 
Spiritualism is true : The wise man of the Bible in 
Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, says "What has been is 
what shall be ; what has been done shall be done again," 



262 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 

But many and clivers manifestations of angels, disem- 
bodied spirits of men, have been made to men in the 
flesh through all the ages, according to Bible record ; 
therefore these manifestations must be made again, and 
modern Spiritualism is true — or the Bible is false. This 
is conclusive, for it is evident the rule was intended as 
general for all time, and not restricted to the apostolic 
or any other age. Again : its disciples say I must take 
the Bible and believe it all as I find it, and not believe 
a part only, else I am no believer of the Bible. I con- 
tend that I may be a believer and yet reject those por- 
tions which are evidently false, as the dogmatic creeds. 

Now I ask them if they believe Joshua really stopped 
the sun or the world; they answer no. Hence, by 
their own rule, they are not Bible believers, but by 
my rule I am a believer in its cardinal truths founded 
in philosophy. 

To my Christian friends of open hearts and liberal 
minds — not those who draw their heads like the tor- 
toise within their own chelonian shells, afraid to feel or 
face the light ; not those whose highest ambition is to 
attend the fashionable church, whose highest piety is to 
take the sacrament, be baptized and pay the preacher; 
not those of vindictive cruel religion who are ever 
ready to shout, " hang him, kill him, crucify him," for 
every little human weakness or peccadillo of which 
themselves are the very impersonation and embodiment; 
not those whose credenda are their consistories, the 
sacrament their shibboleth of faith, their faith the foun- 
dation of their hope, and this hope their only comfort, 
linked as it is with hell on one hand — I would say that 
the evidence in favor of this religion of philosophy is 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 263 

greatly more powerful and conclusive in character, 
kind and amount than that in favor of the religion of 
faith. In character, because of its direct living wit- 
nesses of the most intelligent and estimable men, in- 
stead of deceased, hearsay, traditional testimony of 
ignorant men ; in kind, because of the scientific facts, 
instead of the old mythic fables of miracles against 
known laws of nature ; and in amount, because of the 
living millions among us and everywhere all attesting 
of their personal knowledge of the res gestce to the same 
thing. You believe twelve men or twelve hundred 
men if you please, and ignorant men, too, 1800 years 
ago, whose testimony is contrary to all our experience 
and to nature's eternal laws ; but you would disbelieve 
twelve thousand men now living, and enlightened men, 
too, whose testimony is in accordance with known laws 
of nature, and well understood in modern science. 
You say those twelve apostles of the old religion had 
no motive to mislead, but only incurred obloquy by 
their course. Now 1 ask what motive have these 
twelve thousand living apostles of the new philosophy, 
and don't you heap equal obloquy and opprobrium upon 
them ? Answer this to your own conscience. Is this 
intelligence, or is it common honesty ? You thus strain 
at the gnat of philosophy, and swallow the camel of 
faith. Every principle of evidence and rule of judi- 
cial practice, Greenleaf to the contrary notwithstanding, 
would, if strictly applied, invalidate popular theology 
and establish Spiritual philosophy. It is not the 
amount of human testimony we rely upon in favor of 
this philosophy, nor should you, my Christian friends,, 
thus rely, for we are both greatly overpowered by the 
12* 



264 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

Heathen and the Mohammedan in numbers, and fully 
equalled if not excelled in devotion; it is the irrefragi- 
ble demonstrative evidence, independent of human feel- 
ings, human fears, or human numbers — immutable and 
immaculate. The character of this evidence is a stran- 
ger to all other religions, and makes this the religion 
of philosophy. As the cross is the symbol of faith, 
Christian, and the crescent the symbol of sensuality, 
Moslem, I would have the scroll as concinnous, consen- 
taneous and significant the symbol of the Spiritual reli- 
gion. As man's life spirally unfolds from a central 
cell, and thence unfurls and expands and enlarges his 
lightning-lettered life; so the scroll unfolds from a 
central point and thence unfurls and expands and en- 
larges its lettered intelligence. It is also peculiarly 
appropriate in other respects for an emblem of the Spir- 
itual religion : as the scroll of life, the scroll of fame, 
the scroll of the heavens, the scroll of philosophy, the 
scroll of immortality, the scroll of science. It is like- 
wise significant of intelligence and of letters. 

The typic cross, the crescent, and the scroll, 
Symbols of faith, of passion, and of soul : — 
Unfurl the lettered scroll ! angel emblem 
Of the grand Spiritual philosophy ; 
Unrolling life around the" starry spheres, 
Unfolding angels of immortal life, 
And op'ning the destinies of heaven. 

And as supersecular and supervenient to all others, 
this new philosophical religion has its own inherent 
evidence which every one can see and witness for him- 
self, for all may obtain or witness by proper effort these 
spiritual manifestations. 

But, says the Christian of miraculous faith, we feel 
and witness a like internal evidence, and know whereof 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 265 

we speak. Now, right here we open an interesting 
metaphysical, pneumatological, psychical question, illus- 
trated and displayed to a great degree at popular 
camp meetings and other religious revivals. This 
phenomenon is scientifically known as pathetism. I 
wish my time could admit a full exposition of its phi- 
losophy, for ray present argument depends upon its 
elucidation. I have witnessed and experienced it my- 
self in its most wonderful displays. We have seen 
proud, strong men fall in fear and trembling under its 
mighty influence ; and young, guileless girls of sixteen 
summers, cry in the most piteous accents of deep agony 
and travail of soul, and pour out their tender hearts in 
tears, for mercy, from sure, sudden and impending 
doom. Mercy for what ? Had they ever sinned, these 
guileless girls ? Aye, and we have seen them rise in 
renewed strength, suddenly energized from an unseen 
source, and heard shouts of happiness ring out from 
their little temples like echoes of immortal melodies, 
while bright effulgence gleamed through their glisten- 
ing tears like the play of sparkling sunlight through 
pearly rain-drops. Now whence and wherefore is this ? 
You affirm it to be " conversion " by the direct action 
of God. I aver it is not " conversion," for their after 
lives, soon as the transient influence is over* proves no 
change of heart, or change of life, or permanent con- 
version of any kind. Neither is it the direct action of 
the great God, for He cannot thus contravene His own 
character and immutable laws by working a miracle in 
a human " conversion " to be immediately set aside, 
frustrated and falsified. The true philosophy of pathet- 
ism as evinced in revivals is, first, a great many minds 



266 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

are so constituted that they may persuade themselves 
by constant assiduous effort to believe anything they 
have an intense will and desire to believe; hence, by 
this intense will and effort they believe they are con- 
verted, which cannot be retorted on the evidence of 
science ; or, second, the well known mesmeric sympathy 
epidemic in a crowd of high wrought feeling ; or, third 
the psychological power of the operator (preacher) over 
the congregation; or, fourth, the actual presence of angelic 
or spirit friends blessing them in their then peculiar 
condition of receptivity, which is the true condition and 
result of sincere prayer — and which, when kept up and 
persevered in, as is the case in a few instances, the 
" conversion " will continue and be permanent to this 
extent, no more. 

All these wonderful manifestations and mysterious 
phenomena we witness at large revivals, are wrought 
by and through some or all of these means, the natural 
operations of causes well known and understood by the 
scientific philosopher. The great differences and vari- 
ations in the act and process of " conversion," according 
to the different characters and temperaments of the 
various subjects, some requiring long continued and 
persistent efforts, others proving of ready facility, com- 
port with the same differences in mesmeric subjects 
and spiritual mediums, all under the same principles 
and laws, some requiring long laborious efforts, others 
evincing a ready aptitude to this peculiar influence 
under the control of mind or spirit whether in or out 
of the flesh: they are mutually corroborative and 'ex- 
pository. This likewise accounts for the otherwise 
unaccountable and anomalous fact that the most wicked 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 267 

and hardened sinners are often theeasiest of conversion, 



and the most upright and exemplary characters the 
most difficult of conversion. And this philosophy also 
explains the otherwise inexplicable mystery of some 
preachers, like Caughey and Spurgeon, for examples, 
being so successful in revivals, for it cannot be attrib- 
uted to extra piety, as it is well known that they are 
frequently vain and vindictive — unless this be consid- 
ered extra piety, which indeed is according to the 
principles and practices of some religionists. While on 
the other hand some of the most humble, honest, pious 
and self-denying preachers are the least successful in 
the cause of revivals and conversions. Everybody has 
this element in greater or less degree, susceptible of 
mesmeric influence or spiritual control, called " conver- 
sion." But while you assert in those phenomena of 
revivals, a supernal and supernatural agency, you deny 
it in all others. You aver all other modern spiritual 
manifestations are not preternatural or supernal, but 
the result of deception, delusion, an intellectual epi- 
demic, or some mysterious unknown incarnated agency 
of mundane nature ; while I affirm them to be demon- 
strations of spiritual or supernal agency. In the case 
of revivals you assert them to be due to supernal 
agency, and I to well known causes and elements ex- 
isting in the human mind while incarnated as well -as 
excarnated. The difference is, I can account for and 
explain my opinions on principles of natural philoso- 
phy ; but you cannot account for or explain yours on 
any known principles whatever — unless you claim mere 
faith as the principle, which is accepting my philosophy 
of the delusion. Spirit intercourse you reject through 



268 PHILOSOPHY OP LIPL. 

blind ignorance ; revival conversion yon accept through 
blind faith : when here we have a philosophy which 
explains both on scientific principles of demonstration. 
Will you plunge the abysmal Scylla and Charybdis of 
faith and ignorance, on the one hand ; or on the other, 
climb the clear mountain of philosophy and truth, 
around whose summit play the selectest lights of science. 
Nor can it be retorted on Spiritualists that they are as 
liable to delusion in believing in spiritual inspiration 
as the old religionists in believing in conversion by the 
Holy Ghost, or the special pardon of sins by the direct 
act of God. We have the natural laws of a natural 
philosophy to explain and vindicate ours, while they 
have no law and no philosophy to account for theirs, 
but all in contravention : all known laws of nature and 
philosophy refute their faith as futile and delusive, but 
not detrimental or pernicious to a large portion of the 
human family. In short and pithy anecdote, " conver- 
sion" frequently amounts to this : "Parson , have 

you noticed any change in B. since he was converted 
and joined the church?" " O yes, very great; before, 
when he went out to mend his fences on Sunday, he 
carried his axe on his shoulder, but now he carries it 
under his overcoat." 

A great many Protestant Christians, especially of 
the Episcopalians, deny this sudden change of heart, 
or change of life called conversion; but St. Paul is 
generally cited and urged as a case in point and proof 
of instantaneous conversion. This case of St. Paul, 
however, is not one of miracle, but of philosophy just 
stated like all others of the same analogy. I would 
like to argue this question at some length, but must 



PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 269 

desist. Nevertheless, as I condemn dogmatics in 
others I must not be guilty myself of dogmatism; 
therefore I feel bound to say that while this " conver- 
sion " by the direct act of God Himself or His Holy 
Ghost, as claimed by the orthodox, may be within the 
bounds of possibility, it is certainly much more rational 
and reasonable and natural to believe it effected as I 
have said, in accordance with known laws of nature 
and a beautiful philosophy, which indeed detracts noth- 
ing from its intrinsic value, but rather adds to its com- 
forts to know that our angel friends are ever round and 
near to hear and heed and help us. And whether the 
influence be the direct action of our Father God, or of 
a vicarious Christ, or of a mysterious Holy Ghost, or 
of our progressed excarnated and spiritualized friends 
in the form of angels, it is hallowed and happy, purify- 
ing and felicitous, and should be encouraged, cultivated 
and cherished ; not merely embraced during temporary 
popular excitement, to be immediately disregarded and 
derided as popular" illusion — all puerile excitement may 
be thus derided, but not these true, splendid spiritual 
manifestations and happy impartations of the heavenly 
world, called by some " conversion," or any other name. 
This rational and natural philosophy — rational because 
natural, and natural because rational — also explains 
and clears the mystery from the condition, of trance, so 
frequent, particularly in revival excitements. St. Paul's 
celebrated trance, as well as his conversion, all come 
within the sphere and purview of this splendid philos- 
ophy of spirit power and angelic influence and inter- 
course. It likewise explicates the otherwise strange 
medical fact, that persons in this condition of trance, 



270 PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 

or in any under the control of spirit power, invariably 
recover after remaining for hours pulseless and appa- 
rently lifeless, as for instance the case recorded by Dr. 
Chegne of Col. Townshend, of Scotland, whose heart 
ceased to beat, no pulse, no respiration, his entire frame 
cold and rigid, features shrunk and colorless, all to 
such extent that three medical men pronounced him 
dead. Now we know that this condition of the physi- 
cal system, originating from functional, structural, or 
any other cause than spiritual, is certain dissolution. 
Spiritual mediums are thus controlled for hours, and 
we have seen persons at revival meetings in the same 
condition, with their vital energies prostrated and 
physical functions almost, some entirely, suspended, 
and wondered at their easy and perfect recovery with- 
out injury, when they are, as most frequently, of fragile 
frames and feeble vitality, and much weaker cause and 
less excitement otherwise would prove fatal. This 
philosophy of modern science explains it all satisfacto- 
rily and consolitorily. 

But you may ask, if this Spiritualism be true — this 
philosophy of God — why was it not discovered and 
promulgated sooner ? Why is it that man has lived 
6000 years in ignorance of this great truth? In an- 
swer, I ask, why is it that electricity has not been 
known until now ? why its discovery so neoteric ? 
The lightning through which we communicate and 
which speaks for us, is the same lightning that flashed 
o'er Grecian glory or Roman ruin, aye, that played 
upon the peaks of Sinai. Science had not then shed its 
scintillations in the mind of Moses, Servius, or Lycur- 
gus; nor is it a gratuity of nature or gift of Provi- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 271 

dence : it has to be learned^ culled, collected, collated, 
and appropriated by our honest efforts, from which we 
may weave the philosophy of our life. Like our daily 
bread and the glittering jewel, it is by honest effort 
alone that truth is evolved, and our progression devel- 
oped. As your religion of faith professes to have been 
heralded by a grand providential speciality, and could, 
of course, have been thus promulgated early as well as 
late, why was it not heralded with the birth of man? 
and why its evulgation so imperfect in extent as well 
as time? But man has to labor for the bread of his 
body, and so he lias to labor for the philosophy of his 
life — and this is his true religion. 

You may again object that these new revelations 
abound in platitudes, inconsistencies and contradictions. 
Granted : But does not your old Revelation still more 
abound in absurdities,, inconsistencies and contradic- 
tions, as I have already shown ? Your Great Master 
tells you in one breath to " seek your salvation ;" and 
in the next, "he that seeks to save his life shall lose 
it." My religion of philosophy explains these discrep- 
ancies, and thus can reconcile the contradictions, or 
their causes, of your master, Jesus Christ, as where 
your Bible says, " believe not every spirit," etc. (1 
John, iv, and Jer. 29) ; but your religion of faith 
cannot explain them, and they must, consequently, for- 
ever remain irreconcilable, and believed by none but 
those who have no eyes and follow faith through fear 
and feeling. And through this feeling of fear many 
pretend to ridicule the religion of philosophy, because 
their religion of faith holds over their heads, in terro- 
rem, a devil and damnation ; for does it not tell them 



272 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

if they believe anything else they believe a lie, and 
shall be damned ? We carry no such scorpion lash of 
terror for the timid — philosophy has no horrors for 
the honest, enlightened and true. When we think of 
the low, very low condition of the human family in 
this our first sphere of life, especially in the splendid 
principle of truth that assimilates the angels to the 
Deity — for truth compels me to say that mankind is, as 
the general rule, a race of liars, the men of truth only 
form the exceptions, who become such more from the 
progressive development of moral effort than original, 
native inheritance — when we consider man as yet but 
a higher order of animal in whom the germ exists, and 
from whom it will spring into immortality — when we 
see his resemblance to the lower animals in so many 
traits, as striking and not very refined instances, a cer- 
tain large, sluggish, carniverous and voracious bird of 
the buteotic species or genus, when lie finds his dainty 
repast, with great gravity raises his arms or wings and 
says " grace," or " holds pra'rs," like the church digni- 
taries, big and little, looking as saintly, sanctified and 
sanctimonious as a Puritan psalm-singer; and the great 
gallantry of the gaudy and gallinaceous cock, which no 
doubt brought the observation of Plato, that the " fash- 
ionable urban coc&s-comb is but a biped without feath- 
ers ;" and still more striking, the desj)erately contested 
battle between two heroes of the anserine tribe, which 
couldn't hurt an infant, and then the flattering greet- 
ings and fulsome adulations bestowed upon the victor 
by the applauding tribe, and his proud bearing and 
vain conceit upon his brilliant victory. What a bur- 
lesque upon human nature, and especially woman na- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 273 

ture (glorious, heavenly exceptions, of course), for it is 
she mainly who incites men to battle, and showers her 
smiles upon the bloody hero, just as the females of the 
goose tribe, just mentioned, cackle their encomiums on 
the gallant gander. Woman often starts the burning 
besom of war, as black-eyed Helen, of Troy, and then 
always waters the ashes of its sweeping desolations with 
the free torrents of her tears. She who loves less her 
son, her husband, father, or brother, than her vanity or 
ambition, under the specious guise of patriotism, or any 
other ism, is not the woman with woman's warm heart 
gushing Avith tenderness and love. But to return from 
this subsecutive train. Viewing this phase of human 
nature, I say, how can we wonder at the discordant 
and contradictory revelations or statements from spirits 
who have perhaps just entered the spheres, and have 
made little progress in wisdom, love and truth ? This 
alone is enough to explain all our discrepancies ; and 
the fallibility of the spirit communicator, the imperfec- 
tion of the media, and the liability to other impressions 
pre-existing of the recipient, fully explicate all myste- 
rious discordancies : and this is philosophy. But you 
reject fact, explanation, philosophy, everything but-— 
faith. Faith, my friends, cannot bring bread for the 
body, nor salvation for the soul. This word, " faith," 
however, has no well-defined meaning. According to 
its common acceptation by strict orthodoxy, it is a 
mere myth of superstition and ignorance; but if it 
means intense energy and inexorable resolution, with un- 
swerving confidence in them, it then becomes at once a 
truth and a philosophy. The answer of the Baptist 
preacher to the question, "Are you not afraid your prose- 



274 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

lytes will take cold, immersing them in mid- winter ?" 
"No danger of catching cold, if they've got faith enough" 
— has a truth which he knew, and a philosophy which he 
knew not. It is well known to scientific physicians 
that this is a potent principle in the human mind to 
keep off and cure disease. This determined will can 
take a man unscathed through a pestilence. There is 
no more truthful and philosophical saying than- " where 
there's a will there's a way." By nature's general 
laws, everything accomplishes its purpose, and this 
positive, well-denned, intelligent, earnest, aspiring, de- 
vout will, will accomplish its purpose. It is well said 
by Emerson, " The loiU, that is the man." So much 
and no more of faith and will. And right here, though 
somewhat abrupt, I'll add some eloquent extracts from 
a good little book just published, under the unpretend- 
ing title of " Plain Guide to Spiritualism," by Uriah 
Clark, who writes like one fully endued with the 
heavenly clews : " For more than a quarter of a cen- 
tury the Christian press and church were filled with 
prayers and predictions that God would open the heav- 
ens anew, that the Holy Ghost would come down with 
power, that Jesus Chiist would descend in glory and 
majesty, that angel armies would marshal themselves 
for fresh battles with earth and hell, that some mighty 
manifestation would be made from the skies to flood 
earth with overwhelming showers and flame, like 
tongues of fire, and thunder with vibrations to quake 
the dead souls of the apathetic masses, and jar from 
their centre the very walls and foundations where mul- 
titudes congregated. But the very first faint sound 
coming in response to these prayers and predictions 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 275 

sent terror into the heart of modern Christendom. 
While in the very act of praying and predicting that 
some celestial manifestations of power and majesty 
might be made, lo, a feeble sound was heard on the 
altar floor or pulpit case, and priest and people were 
seized with alarm; they turn pale with affright; their 
prayers shake them, and they take them back; they 
pray God to forgive them for asking more than they 
were prepared to . receive ; Catholics cross themselves 
and Protestants beg to be absolved; through the blue 
goggles of their dogmas they see '" hydras, gargons, 
chimeras dire/' pale phantoms of alarm, shrieking 
ghosts, wandering wild in the midnight air, and 'weird 
hags like those mumbling in Macbeth ; and they cry 
out, Delusion, Beelzebub ! Back, demons damned, ye 
legioncd throngs clothed in the alluring light of the 
spheres. 

" Practical Spiritualism is summed up in one word — 
Love; love to God, manifest in love to humanity. 
While Spiritualists seek no central creed, no fixed 
platform of intellectual opinion, no rigid system of 
theology, binding the conscience and trammeling free- 
dom, they are united in the one grand, central element 
of fraternal love encircling the family of earth and 
heaven. We can all agree, without controversy, in 
regard to this central principle, for there is one common 
chord of benevolence running through the great heart 
of humanity, which needs only to be touched aright to 
vibrate in harmony with the angel world. But men 
may quarrel everlastingly about abstract creeds and 
systems addressed to the head alone, without coming 
to any uniform opinion, while their hearts are rent 



276 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

with discord, or left cold, desolate, untouched. The 
religious world for ages has endeavored to unite in 
creeds and forms to save humanity; but with what 
lamentable results ! It has not saved even itself, and 
to-day the churches are found waning and powerless ; 
and while they are contending over the " dry bones" 
of old faiths and formulas past all resurrection, millions 
of the ignorant, erring, fallen, and unbelieving are left 
to pine and perish outside the pale of redemption. 

a In this emergency Spiritualism makes its advent. 
It is scouted by sectarians and would-be philosophers, 
because it begins with no rigid creed or system, but 
leaves each individual conscience and intellect free to 
seek and decide for itself, while it first aims to reach 
the heart and awaken those divine religious affections 
paramount over every other department of human na- 
ture. We thank God and the angel world that Spirit- 
ualism comes as a religion of the affections. It em- 
braces all science, philosophy, reason, intellect ; but its 
angel hands reach down through all these and first 
seek to lay hold of the slumbering chords of the human 
heart. 'He that loveth, is born of God, and knoWeth 
God ; for God is love.' 

" John goes on to say, in substance, that divine love 
was manifest in Jesus; that men may know whether 
they have this love by the spiritual witness within 
them, and that no man can love God without loving 
his brother man. 1 John iv. Recognizing God as the 
Father Spirit of all souls, whose essence is love, every 
spirit or angel commissioned of God to visit humanity 
must come on errands of love, and is a manifestation 
of the Christ-principle, the Holy Ghost, or the Holy 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 277 

Host of heaven, whether that spirit or angel be one of 
the departed saints of sacred history or a little child 
just gone from the humblest home below. There is no 
small or great in the spiritual kingdom now being in- 
augurated on earth, no high or low, no rich or poor, 
but all are one in the fellowship of love engirting the 
universe. Could we take some lofty stand-point in 
the spirit world, and gaze down through all the tran- 
sient grades and conditions of humanity, seeing as an- 
gels see, we should discover one central element of love 
more or less pervading all souls, and learn that most 
of the evils, errors, and differences existing among the 
millions below were less than our false judgment had 
apprehended, while every being would reveal a germ of 
divinity destined to mount and burn with glory among 
the celestial hosts of eternal progress. The rapidity 
with which manifestations have spread, and the avidity 
with which they are believed, together with the fact 
that all past ages have demonstrated something similar, 
suggest to us, that man has a spiritual nature which 
cannot be satisfied without a belief in Spiritualism. 
This belief expands his soul with all the great hopes 
and aspirations Avhich leap beyond the skies, and is the 
citadel on which he stands when all other foundations 
are swept away on the winds and waves of time. With- 
out a consciousness of something within him which 
shall survive the mutations of time, something allied 
to God and another realm of higher intelligences, what 
were this life to the suffering millions? And it is to 
this consciousness we must appeal, if we would have 
Spiritualism reach the hearts of the people. You go 
to your skeptical brother, and tell him of the wonder- 



2(8 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 

ful manifestations you have seen and winch lie may 
see ; but perhaps he treats your story with levity. But 
you then appeal to his own interior nature ; you ask if 
he has not some hopes, some desires, some affections 
which reach beyond the grave ; if some dear one has 
not gone before him, with whom he would like to com- 
mune, and if he would not feel happier and better to 
know all this. And he will cease his levity, and per- 
chance, while his bosom .heaves, a tear will steal into 
his eyes ; and he will turn away, resolved to seek for 
light, and to search his own soul. O, could we but 
touch the right chord in the hearts of our brothers and 
sisters, we should no longer suffer their raiiery, but 
feel their hands grasped in warm fellowship and see 
their faces wet with streams of joy and love! The dull 
multitudes plodding along life as though there were 
nought to do but eat, drink and die, are startled with 
new views of the mission of man, and begin to feel 
there is a divinity within allied to God, and destined 
to walk eternity in the companionship of angels. The 
poor, the lowly, the lost are lifted up in communion 
with worlds and beings of kingly glory and grandeur, 
and no longer feel they are the reprobates of God and 
the offcasts of creation. This gospel equalizes ail 
grades and conditions in one band of fraternity, and 
makes the rich and the poor sit down together as com- 
mon guests at the board around which angels minister 
celestial messages. Xo lines are drawn in the kingdom 
of spiritual love and truth, The opening heavens shine 
down as brightly through lowly hamlets and dingy 
dungeons, as on gilded palaces and proud spires pierc- 
ing the clouds; and with noiseless flight the spirit- 



rin;. :::.," :*y i-v r :fe ( JID 

bands wing their way down over the wide planes of 
humanity, whispering the music of the spheres to 
attune our souls in harmony with the sons of God 
shouting their anthems amid the melody of the morn- 
ing stars of primeval creation. And they come with 
light to shine along the darkest path of life, and with 
beacons to point our way over the billows which shall 
soon waft our spirits whither the generations of the 
past have gone before us. No Sinai shall quake, no 
Olympus shall thunder, no Jerusalem shall be clothed 
in the tragic drapery of Calvary, no war gods shall rat- 
tle their fiery chariots over continents deluged in blood, 
no dogmas of human terror, like volcanic flames, shall 
heave forth edicts of damnation on trembling millions ; 
but the mountain-tops of the century shall gleam with 
the sunlight of angel faces, and echo the harmonic 
songs of the empyrean. Tidings already break from 
the myriad lips of the beloved and beautified bending 
with benedictions over the hearts and homes of human- 
ity. Fear not! Hells may clang with alarms, and 
millions turn pale amid revolutions threatening thrones 
and republics, but the guardians of the Eternal sit calm 
in the council-chambers of heaven, and over the turbu- 
lent sea of human discord breathe the air and pour the 
oil of celestial harmony. Sit calm in the temple of 
thine own soul amid the din and jar of the outer world 
and thou shalt hear cadences echoing down from the 
grand anthem ever more sounding through the corri- 
dors of the upper world. Scenes shall soon unfold to 
human vision transcending what olden seers and sages 
longed to behold. Millions of mortals shall bathe in 
the coming Pentecost of ages. Arise, priests, rulers, 
13 



280 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

and people, arise! Gird on your sandals anew, and 
catch the mantles of the ascended as they come back in 
chariots of lightning with the flames of living inspira- 
tion. Dash each tear from thine eye, stifle each fear, 
fling thy sighs to the winds, walk forth with the tread 
of a god in thy footstep, fighting life's battles side by 
side with that celestial army \ whose white tents are 
already struck for the morning march of eternity.' 
The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! The council- 
chambers of the eternal world stand open, and the con- 
gresses of celestial empires are seeking to guide the 
destiny of nations. The ascended saints, sages, and 
patriots of America, the heroes and victors of battle- 
fields once red with blood and glorious with the tro- 
phies of freedom, and all the armies bearing palms on 
the plains of immortal life, now bend with wisdom over 
the conflict rending your continent, bidding you 
still remember the brotherhood of the race ; and above 
the clamor of belligerent hosts, the clash of arms and 
thunder of artillery, listen once more to angel anthems 
of peace and good will." 

But, quoth the fossiliferous remains of the ox-cart 
ages, Newton, Washington, our fathers, all believed; 
hence we, too, ought to believe and follow them as they 
followed their fathers, back to Jacob, Isaac and Noah. 
This proves too much, if it proves anything. We 
ought now to be wearing sandals instead of shoes, bus- 
kins instead of boots, fig leaves and bearskins instead 
of silk dresses and broadcloth; should live in rustic 
idylie tents instead of marble modish residences, to 
practice the primitive art of castrametation instead of 
the elegant arts of palatial refinement; should cultivate 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 281 

the soil and carry on commerce with the ox instead of 
steam, viewing this last scientific innovation as a Sa- 
tanic device to subvert ihe providence of God; should 
offer sacrifices of he-goats and bullocks to appease the 
Deity, who might be wrathy with us ; should say our 
prayers to priests and worship images of the Virgin 
Mary, who lived a mother and died a virgin{f). But 
we have deviated and departed from the path of our 
fathers in everything, even the most sacred symbols 
and religious rites; for instance — before those great 
iconoclastic innovators, Luther and Calvin, the bread 
and wine of the eucharist, were viewed as the veritable 
body and blood of Christ ; now they are viewed by 
Protestants as merely typical, and the old sacred tran- 
substantiation is utterly rejected— just as all the old 
sacred superstitions will ultimately be rejected by fu- 
ture Protestants under the light of progressive science. 
And if your old Revelation is from the omniscient God, 
as it professes and you believe, w T hy should it, how can 
it, have the least inconsistency, to say nothing of con- 
tradiction and absurdity ? Evidently impossible. I 
tell you, my Christian friends, the Bible and Spiritual- 
ism must stand or fall together; rather Spiritualism 
may stand, ean stand, will stand, independent of the 
Bible; but the Bible cannot stand amid the bright 
blaze of modern science, without the support of Spirit- 
ualism. If Moses and Isaiah, Paul and Peter, of the 
prophets and apostles, were spiritually inspired in the 
olden time, so are Davis and Harris, Hume and Gor- 
don, to a less or greater extent, mediums of the present 
day, spiritually inspired; or, if the mediums of the 
present day are not thus inspired, neither were the 



282 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

prophets and apostles, for the same philosophy runs 
through and underlies it all from the Hindu Rama to 
John on Patmos, as well as all the ancient sybils, ora- 
cles and college of augurs, of which Cato and Cicero 
were members. The present generation of Edmunds 
and Talmadge is as much spiritually inspired de facto 
and dejure, as were the generations of John, of Isaiah, 
of Zoroaster, or of Budha, Brahma, and much more 
intelligibly, as modern science lends its light to illume 
the midnight mysteries enveloping them. The same 
elements or media of communication exist now that 
existed then, and science is evolving the philosophy, 
and building a pillar of support that will sustain the 
truths of these revelations when all the churches, with 
their creeds, their canons, and consistories, and conven- 
tionalisms will fall into ruins, like Herculaneum and 
Pompeii, Persepolis and Palmyra, under the earth- 
quake tread of moral revolutions. 

Says Rev. Charles Beecher, a very different man 
from Henry Ward — this fanatic buffoon and pulpit 
braggart will not attain in a life- time this side his flu- 
vial Jordan the learning and honor of the former — in 
his official report on the new spiritual revelations: 
" Whenever odylic conditions are right, spirits can no 
more be repressed from communicating than water 
from jetting through the crevices of a dyke. 

"Whatever physiological law accounts for odylic 
phenomena in all ages, will, in the end, inevitably 
carry itself through the Bible. Its prophecies, ecsta- 
cies, visions, trances, theophanies, angelophanies, physi- 
ology and anthropology, are highly odylic, and must 
be studied as such. As such it will be found to har- 



r: .'.osophy of life. 283 

nionize with the general principles of human experi- 
ence in such matters in all ages. If a theory be adapted 
everywhere else but in the Bible, excluding spiritual 
intervention by odylic channels in toto, and accounting 
for everything physically, then will the covers of the 
Bible prove but pasteboard barriers. Such a theory 
will sweep its way through the Bible and its authority ; 
its plenary inspirations will be annihilated." 

In the language of another, "Is it likely that one 
who has seen doors open and shut, heavy substances 
moved about, and a human body upborne and without 
mortal contrivance or effort, will believe less that 
Christ walked on the water ; that an angel rolled away 
a great stone from the sepulchre ; or that Peter was 
released from prison by a spirit ? Because one has seen 
lights and appearances of flame, caused as he verily 
believes by spirits, will he have less faith that the an- 
gel of God manifested himself to Moses in a burning 
bush, or that tongues of fire sat on the apostles at the 
great spiritual manifestation ' of Pentecost ? Shall one 
hear all manner of sounds, caused by spiritual agency, 
even to a thundering roar, which shakes the whole 
house, and therefore grow more skeptical about the 
thunders of Sinai, or the i great noise as of a mighty 
rushing wind/ and shaking of the house where the 
apostles prayed ? Shall one be convinced that spirits 
actually write on paper, wood and stone, with pencil, 
pen, etc., with their own visible hands, and therefore 
have less faith that a mighty angelic spirit inscribed 
the decalogue on tables of stone and reached them forth 
out of a thick cloud to Moses ? or grow more skeptical 
at the reality of the handwriting on the wall at Bel- 
shazzar's feast ? 



284 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

"Will men who are sure they have conversed with 
the spirits of departed friends for hours, therefore doubt 
whether Moses and Elias conversed with Jesus on the 
mount? Anti-Bible skepticism does not thrive on 
such nourishment, neither does irreligion or immorality 
gain strength by the moral and reformatory communi- 
cations made in connection with these manifestations." 

For these extracts I am indebted to a little tract 
called " What's O'clock," by a New Orleans merchant, 
to whom I personally expressed my gratitude — from 
which tract I derived more comfort in the midst of 
affliction on the loss of a little child, than from any 
preaching, profession, or philosophy I had ever heard, 
read, or studied ; and I recommend this little pamphlet 
as not only interesting but unanswerable, humble as it 
may be. Eev. Mr. Ferguson, Protestant, of Nashville, 
says — and I give it but as- an example of many others — 
" I believe, I Mow, that I have held, and now fre- 
quently hold, communion intelligible and improving, 
with kindred and elevated spirits who have passed 
from fleshly sight." 

The Catholic church acknowledges the verity of 
spiritual communications, but ascribes them to the devil 
or diabolical agency. (The Lord send us more of these 
devils with their pure preceptions and lights of immor- 
tality !) E contrario, the Abbot Almignana, Doctor of 
the Canon Law, etc., writes .- " Having witnessed some 
extraordinary phenomena, and desiring to assure my- 
self as to the presence of a diabolical agency in these 
manifestations, as I had been persuaded to believe — 
profiting by the opportunity offered by some mediums 
magnetized by others and not by myself, I was induced 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 285 

to pray, to invoke the sacred names of God and Jesus, 
to make the sign of the cross on the subjects, and went 
so far as to sprinkle them with holy water, with the 
design of driving out the Devil should he have taken 
possession of them." [You must remember, according 
to the Catholic ritual, sublata causa tottitur effectus, re- 
move the cause and the effect ceases; the names of 
Jesus, holy water, etc., will drive off the evil one.] 
" However, as not one of these mediums lost in my 
presence, the smallest part of their powers, I was led 
to infer that the Devil had nothing to do with the 
phenomena." In another instance he says, "the me- 
dium, instead of repelling the cross as he expected, 
seized it, and smiling, pressed it to his lips in the most 
affectionate manner," etc. Again, the eloquent pre- 
late, Lacordaire, proclaims from the pulpit in the 
church of Notre Dame, of Paris, that " this phenome- 
non belonged to the order of prophecy, and that it was 
a provision of the divinity to humble the pride of ma- 
terialism." 

Thus you see the enlightened and honest of the 
preachers and priests investigate and attest the truth of 
these new scientific revelations. But to the captious, 
cavilous clergy, of whatever creed, caste, or clan, for 
they are generally clanish and gregarious, one clinch- 
ing, comprehensive question : Do the facts and philoso- 
phy claimed for Spiritualism tend to confirm and sub- 
stantiate the similar facts and revelations of Brahma in 
the Rug Vedas, Boodh in the Bedagat, Zoroaster in 
the Zend-Avesta, of Isaiah in the Hebrew Talmud, 
of Mohammed in the Koran, of John in the New 
Testament, and all the past revelations of excarnated to 



286 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

incarnated man, attesting human immortality? Or do 
they tend to render them all incredible and impossible ? 
Spare us the senseless, satanic hue and howl of hum- 
bug, delusion, deception, insanity, profanity, infidelity, 
free-love, etc., which is irrelevant as the cry of steam- 
boat, small-pox, earthquake, comet; but plead to the 
issue and give a sensible, honest answer, if you can, 
and demean yourselves accordingly. And while, in 
the plentitude of your piety, you roll up the whites of 
your eyes in holy horror of my " blasphemy," for not 
believing Christ to be the God of creation, and for my 
honesty and independence in avowing it, I warn you to 
take care that you do not commit the " unpardonable 
sin " in denying the holy spiritual agency of my phi- 
losophy, and which Christ claimed and proclaimed. 
This is sacred soil, hallowed ground: tread lightly,, 
softly. Now to men of science, those philosophical 
minds who float with fate and drift with destiny, see- 
ing no certain light, but uncertain hope, whose faint 
effulgence only leads their ardent aspirations to disap- 
pointment and despair; to the rationalistic infidel and 
scientific materialist I would specially address * myself, 
and with the deepest sympathies of my soul. You are 
free from partiality and prejudice, untrammeled with 
sects and sectaries, untinged with sacramental symbols, 
above the narrow bounds of bigotry, and seek truth, 
free, untarnished truth, as it beams from the burnished 
throne through all the works of nature's grand econ- 
omy. I give you cordial greeting on this splendid 
tribune of truth, where science gathers her jewels, and 
from her starry wings sheds them on her votaries. 
You are- disgusted with, human nature — sick of the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 287 

world and its ways, and turn from the follies brought 
on the new philosophy by human weakness and de- 
pravity. "We should not wonder at the huge humbug- 
gery and charlatanism, the jugglers and tricksters that 
have gathered around these glorious revelations, for 
such has been the case with all the simpler and less 
alluring or less inviting apocalypses of all past time, of 
all the Bibles from Brahma to Mohammed, and espe- 
cially with the Jewish Bible and Christian revelations. 
See what stupendous fabrics of superstition have been 
reared and perpetuated on this simple revelation. It 
is all poor human nature. Let us independently inves- 
tigate the credibility and philosophy of the phenomena, 
and not abjectly submit to the forged formularies of a 
paid priesthood ; otherwise we never shall be free ; for 
it is still poor human nature we have to deal with. If 
thousands profess to be called of God specially to 
preach, we should not wonder at other thousands pro- 
fessing to be inspired and communicated with by angels 
of their own ilk, for certainly it is greatly less preten- 
tious to hold communion with our own kith and kin 
excarnated, than with the great God and creator, whom 
no man hath seen, or can see, or hear. Your towering 
aspirations have soared in vain to find an exalted home 
of purity, permanence and peace beyond the hazy hori- 
zon of mundane mutations. You have seen the utter 
inadequacy, the futility, the absurdity and the falsity 
of all the revelations as expounded and proclaimed by 
pontiff and preacher, calif and clergy. Science has 
lighted up to you the dark vaults of their superstitions, 
and exposed their corruptions to your enlightened 
view. You can have no hope here. And even discard- 
13* 



288 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

ing the disgusting dogmas interpolated in the Christian 
Bible and embracing its fundamental enunciations as 
of divine origination, as interpreted by its official dig- 
nitaries, the diabolical anathemas of hell and damna- 
tion without end to- his children, invest the character 
of our creator witk an attribute of cruelty and malig- 
nity which, coupled with His omnipotence, would trans- 
form His whole universe into a boundless and illimita- 
ble hell, without a pulse of pleasure to beat to the dead 
march of mourning millions unnumbered. No hope 
here. And even its heaven in the dim and uncertain 
distance of hereafter, so loudly glorified j and the plan 
of salvation so much lauded as the paragon of perfec- 
tion in divine wisdom and love, indeed as the mount 
on which mercy and justice kissed each other, fail, 
utterly fail to still the troubled throbbings of the en- 
lightened human heart that beats with philanthropy 
and philosophy in unison with the angels. Only a 
modicum of earth's millions ever hear an echo of this 
salvation, and but a fraction of this modicum ever 
reach the portals of that distant heaven, dismal in the 
distance. But of those favored few that do pass within 
its pearly portals — their memories — where are they 2 
The cherished endearments of time — do they live for- 
ever ? Our memories are either taken with us after 
death and retained in heaven, or they are not. If re- 
tained, the recollections of loved and lost friends, now 
in a hopeless hell of eternal damnation, must wake an 
echo to mar the music of that celestial sphere, and in- 
flict an anguish to throb in the very bosom of bliss ; 
aye, will wake a wail of woe that shall sound upon the 
long roll of eternal years, as ever and anon the constant 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 289 

cry of "he cometh not, he cometh not," shall ring out 
upon the cycles of eternity ! But if our memories are 
not retained, then the hallowed associations, the sacred 
friendships and loves, our foretaste of heaven, nay, our 
very hsecceity, must die out with death, and this 
heaven is no reunion of kindred spirits; the pure emo- 
tions of earth that assimilate us to the angel life, are 
not to be rekindled in the Christian heaven. Will 
death roll a lethean stream over all earth's love, and 
the wave of oblivion bury forever the cherished remi- 
nescences of time ? Here the vortices of Scylla and 
Charybdis open before us. No hope here. In agony 
and despair you leave all the miraculous revelations 
and look to science. She was teaching you that spirit 
is but the result of physical organism, and must perish 
with the dissolution of the material organization — that 
we have no undying nature. 

In despair again, but not in agony, you seek the 
solace of oblivion, and suck sweetness from the cup of 
nothing — nepenthe from oblivion — you claim and court 
the Brahminical privilege of Nirvana, and implore the 
great Baldeva to still your throbbing heart, and cool 
your fevered brow in Lethe's turbid wave ; for is not 
this eternal sleep a sweet repose in comparison with 
the bitter life of all these old revelations? 

You draw a virtue from this stern necessity and call 
on the grave to cover you forever with its cold clods, 
and extinguish, O death, this little lamp of life, that it 
may flicker no more amid the damps of death, where 
the oxygen of hope only buds out the blossoms of the 
human heart for the nitrogen of death to blast and 
wither. O put out this little light that only illumes 



290 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

the wrecks of hope and the ruins of love. The ruins 
of love! who can picture them ? Who paint the hu- 
man hopes that bud out like blossoms of the human 
heart — for what ? to fruit a heritage of hereafter ? No ; 
to be crushed and consigned to the ruins of love ! The 
ruins of love ! beside which Volney's ruins are the 
playthings of children. Imagine the pillared universe 
dissolving, the throne of Deity crumbling, the sera- 
phim, and cherubim, and all the archangel host, falling 
and tumbling from their high-sphered beatitudes in 
undistinguishable ruin, and you may then conceive the 
mighty meaning and significance of the ruins of love. 
You look to science and this is the lesson she taught 
you. That all your hopes will fall in wrecks, and all 
your loves dissolve in ruins> and the silence of sleep 
enwrap you forever in the shroud of oblivion. ~No 
hope, no hope ! You would sink under your iliad of 
woes. But stay yet longer with me on this favored 
tribune of truth, where science drops her gems and 
sheds her sweetest rays serene. Know ye not she's 
culled another, and her highest truth, to crown the 
character of mankind ? Know ye not her last and 
mightiest truth, that unlocks the chambers of angelic 
life, and opens portals of immortality for the aspirations 
of the true ? And against this grand and mightiest 
truth of science, which connects its electric wires of 
mind to spheres where the wrecks of hope and ruins of 
love are unfeared and unknown, beyond the regions of 
convolving vapor, charged with unequal lightning and 
muttering thunder — against this sweet serene of science 
are hurled the shafts of bitter invective and cruel cal- 
umny by those for whom it weaves a mantle of undy- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 291 

ing love and charity — some who look to science, but 
fear opinion. 

This bright luminary that science has unfolded in 
the firmament is inveighed against, barked at and as- 
sailed by the poor canine kindred of the human family, 
who follow science less than fear and prejudice. Just 
so, you know, was the great Watt opposed, and his 
great labor-saving discovery, because it would supplant 
and save human labor, just as this will supplant prelatic 
officiation and save human sorrow ; and so the mighty 
man of Wirtemberg was maligned and menaced be- 
cause he lettered the language for earth's pitied chil- 
dren, and the printing press was ascribed to diabolism. 
And so the opposition to the establishment of the Royal 
Society, because it was asserted that the experimental 
philosophy was subversive of the Christian faith ; and 
the readers of D'Israeli will remember the telescope 
and microscope were stigmatized as atheistical inven- 
tions, which perverted our organ of sight and made 
everything appear in a false light. So late as 1806 
the Anti-Vaccination Society denounced the discovery 
of vaccination as a gross violation of religion, morality, 
law and humanity. It was denounced from the pulpit 
as diabolical, tempting of God's providence, an inven- 
tion of Satan, a wresting out of the hands of the Al- 
mighty the divine dispensation of Providence, and its 
abettors were charged with sorcery and atheism. 
When fanning machines were first introduced to win- 
now the chaff from the wheat by producing an artificial 
current of air, it was argued that winds were raised by 
God alone, and it was irreligious in man to attempt to 
raise wind for himself and by efforts of his own ; and 



292 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

one Scottish clergyman refused the holy communion to 
those of his parishioners who thus irreverently raised 
the Devil's wind. 

You remember how the innocent recreation of 
dancing is denounced by the puritanical pious- — " that 
the dance is the Devil's procession — the woman that 
singeth in the dance is the prioress of the Devil, and 
those that answer are his clerks, and the beholders are 
his parishioners, and the music are the bells, and the 
fiddlers are the ministers of the Devil," etc. (often bet- 
ter ministers than some others of greater pretensions 
we wot of). The great Kepler, for his grand astro- 
nomic revelations, was accused of conjuration with the 
Devil ; and see how were treated Gallileo, Faust, So- 
crates and a host of other moral luminaries, represen- 
tative men — no, not all — for some lived in supernal 
spheres, many centuries beyond their age and genera- 
tion. And Jesus Christ, who preached peace and 
charity on earth, and happiness and immortality in 
heaven, to the good, was crucified because he claimed 
to be a son of our common Fatner. What boots it, 
then, if we, too, be contemned and ostracised? Let 
the old theologue plod the path that pays, the rampant 
preacher valiantly demolish the man of straw he 
builds ; and let the wrangling politician intrigue and 
trade for the spoils of office, or labor for the ephemeral 
glory of a momentary notoriety: be it our mission, 
both humble and proud, or public or private, to trace 
the glimmering threads of light that reach us from a 
higher world, investigate the organon of nature, teach 
charity and truth, inculcate love as the element of im- 
mortality, and claim, and cherish, and cultivate kin- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 293 

dred with the angel world. This world of fools may 
call us infatuated, mad, crazy. Did they not call the 
great Chatham mad because he denounced the Crown 
and declared Britain " never could conquer America, 
never, never !" Then call us mad because we denounce 
the crown of popular prejudice, and declare death and 
hell never can conquer our loves, never, never ! Did 
they not call the great orator and scientific statesman 
and philosopher, Edmund Burke, whose name illumin- 
ates Irish and British history, mad, because he foretold 
the unhappy results of the French Revolution, and in 
fiery denunciations of the Ministry, thundered to the 
Chair of the Commons the words of St. Paul, "I am 
not mad, most noble Festus, but speak the words of 
truth and soberness," and predicted that in twenty 
years the world would call his accusers mad ; and also, 
because in his tender and affectionate memory for his 
deceased son, whom he feared, and perhaps believed, 
he would never meet again, for the world then had no 
proof to satisfy his philosophic mind of immortality — 
because he would embrace and caress in the most touch- 
ing manner his son's favorite horse ! I, too, have done 
the same thing, and do now caress and pet the favorite 
horse of my son — lost and loved — so like his young 
master, so spirited and yet so gentle; and so, likewise, 
does his sister, so devoted to his memory ; indeed, his 
memory is now our family shrine. Am I and my art- 
less, innocent and affectionate daughter, then — aye, and 
everybody who has this deep devotion of love, this 
idiocy, or idiocrasy, or idiosyncrasy, as the callous brute 
might call it — infatuated, mad ? Aye, we would in- 
deed be mad if that noble son and brother, though 



294 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

" unconverted/ 7 were consigned by God to an endless 
hell, or endless nihility, that we never more should 
meet his manly form, nor share his genial sympathies, 
or meet ? mong devils damned. Is this quenchless love 
unfolded from our life like the unconscious flower from 
the earth, a pretty principle to fade forever after a 
fleeting hour ? Or is it an infant attribute, an emana- 
tion of the eternal God, to light our life forever, 
quenchless as yon fires that light the firmament ? Even 
now, while inditing this brief and fitting addendum, I 
look out through the windows of my country cottage 
and see the faithful animal contentedly grazing in the 
green pastures of my rural home. Is he who hath left 
our carnal sight contentedly, happily ranging the spirit 
pastures of the angel home ? O, for an evidential view 
of that spirit home, that happy home in the bright blue 
ether that enzones us in a circean cincture, like a girdle 
of glory ! All the fauna and flora of our earth have 
country, climate, seasons and even colors, with natures, 
desires and dispositions, mutually adapted one for the 
other. Shall the horse, conscious of nothing but his 
pasture and our kindness, be fully gratified ; while he, 
with his superb soul and aspiring spirit, and we, with 
undying hope to meet him, are thus endued and en- 
dowed to be tantalized with the merest mockery and 
direst cruelty ? And would a wise Creator have a great 
globe, with a surrounding and encompassing space of 
vast extent, for nothing but the single surface? Not 
so: these circumjacent realms are to be peopled with 
those for whom they are mutually adapted, one for the 
other, as in the fauna and flora of this sphere. Yet, 
notwithstanding this and other illative arguments of 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 



2S5 



inductive analogy proving immortality, apart from the 
demonstrations of spiritual science, I, nevertheless, like 
Burke, sometimes doubt; even with these demonstra- 
tions I doubt, and yet I believe ; I believe, and yet I 
doubt; doubting, I believe, and believing, I doubt. 
When I witness the innocent suffering and death around 
me, I doubt demonstration itself of immortality. What 
a glorious, unspeakable blessing these spiritual demon- 
strations would have been to such a mind as Burke's! 
The celebrated philosophical historian, David Hume, 
of whom Adam Smith observed that " he approached 
as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous 
man as the nature of human frailty will permit," says 
" doubt irremediable is the sole inheritance of our race." 
I have inherited my full share of this universal patri- 
mony, to the extent that it frequently shakes my phi- 
losophy (T have no faith) and mars the happiness of 
my anticipations. For this frank avowal I may be 
called skeptic, infidel. I am willing, and can afford to 
be called skeptic, deluded, infatuated, mad, to be de- 
rided, ridiculed, but never insulted. Let us investigate 
and be patient, trusting to the goodness of that God 
who has planted our path with the myrtle and the rose, 
and strewed our bed with flowers to gratify our love 
for the pure and the beautiful with which He hath en- 
dowed us, that He will yet gratify all our loves, and 
plant us, too, among the fadeless flowers of the spheres 
where love immortal blooms ! You will recollect how 
Franklin, and Fulton, and Fitch were derided, and the 
greatest and best men of the world ridiculed and in- 
sulted. But all this is passing away before the march 
of mind, and will not deter your honest and fearless 



296 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

spirits of moral heroism. "The world moves for all 
that." Science marches on, and destiny develops, and 
philosophy unfolds, silent as the circle of the sun, steady 
as the travel of a star, and sure as the annals of 
eternity. 

I ask you to investigate this philosophy— for it is 
open to all, and specially invites you philomathic men 
of wisdom — examine its records, ins'pect its muniments, 
test its truth, and appropriate the precious, priceless 
pearl, to glitter in the galaxy of your loves. Study 
well this mysterious and hitherto unknown principle of 
the human mind and of nature, which, as Dr. Franklin 
informed Cabanis, " frequently unfolded to him in his 
dreams the bearings and issue of political events which 
had puzzled him when awake;" that presented to 
Condorcet, in his visions, the comlusions of the most 
abstruse calculations, which he could not arrive at when 
awake ; the dream of Lord Bacon, in France, of the 
death of his father, in England, which he afterwards 
found realized to the letter and the moment ; the mys- 
terious female spectre that appeared both day and night 
to Cromwell, and his strange presentiment and de- 
meanor on the bloody fields of Dunbar and Naseby ; 
the mysteries of the Seeress of Provorst ; the vaticina- 
tions of Nostradamus, which were bitterly fulfilled 
several centuries after their utterance ; and the distin- 
guished lawyer of Edinburgh, who had been consulted 
in a most difficult ease of great importance, and had 
been studying it with intense anxiety and attention. 
After several days had been occupied in this manner, 
he was observed by his wife to rise from his bed in the 
night and go to a writing desk which stood in the bed- 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 297 

room. He then sat down and wrote a long paper, 
which he put carefully by in the desk, and returned to 
bed. The following morning he told his wife that he 
had a most interesting dream ; that he had dreamed of 
delivering a clear and luminous opinion respecting a 
case which had exceedingly perplexed him ; and that 
he would give anything to recover the train of thought 
which had passed before him in his dream. She then 
directed him to the writing desk, where he found the 
opinion clearly and fully written out, and which was 
afterwards found to be perfectly correct. And most 
especially I entreat you to analyze the wonderful mys- 
teries of modern contemporaneous record ; search the 
secret of the startling phenomena of daily development 
and occurrence around us, as chronicled in the periodi- 
cal press of Spiritual literature, so accessible to all ; the 
thrilling incidents and startling intelligence in the 
youth and early years of deceased friends, intelligence 
long forgotten or entirely unknown, contrary to th e 
impressions and opinions of all in carnal connection, 
but afterwards found to be true, and which could have 
been communicated by none but those who thus avow 
themselves, we know to be deceased ; also, of ponderous 
bodies moving about like feathers, beyond the, power 
of all human effort, and many and divers manifestations 
of supernal spirit power; as illustrative instance, a 
piano will give forth the most rapt and ravishing mu- 
sic unknown to all in the room, by the medium simply 
laying her hands upon it, even on the opposite side 
(most generally female, as in the days of Spiritual power 
recorded in the Bible, because more negative, and re- 
ceptive, and susceptible, and impressible, spiritually as 



298 f>iiiLosoi>HY of U&Z. 

well as physically, than the other and more positive 
sex) ; the speaking of a young, guileless girl of superior 
sentiments and in tongues unknown to her ; the minute 
and specific description of form, feature, peculiarities of 
character, constitution, dress, etc., of some near relative 
long since deceased and when a child, unknown to the 
medium and all present, but afterwards, upon inquiry, 
found to be correct ; the announcement of new scientific 
truths and their philosophy, at the time totally un- 
known, but ascertained and established by subsequent 
investigation. 

As simple and touching examples, a spirit, through 
the medium, communicates : We ask, " What is your 
name?" Answer — "John Doe." We question — 
" Where did you die?" Answer — " I am not dead ; I 
left the form at Petersburg." Question — " How long 
have you been in the spirit world ?" Answer — " Three 
months." Question — " Did you know us while in the 
flesh ?" Answer — " No." Question—" Have you any- 
thing to communicate ?" Answer — " Yes ; I want you 
to write to my dear wife and tell her that I am not in 
the cold, dark grave. My spirit is free. I am with 
her often, and try to impress ' her with my presence. 
Our two little children, Ann and Charlie, are with me, 
and we are happy." Question — " What is your wife's 
name?" Answer — ■" Jane Doe." We write to Peters- 
burg and find all true. 

Again : A young lady is engaged to be married to 
a gentleman who is a fine musician, particularly on the 
piano, and the day and hour set. Before the appointed 
time of their nuptial consummation, he is accidentally 
killed. At her house grief takes the place of joy. 



PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE. 299 

When the appointed day arrives, and the clock strikes 
the hour when hilarity and happiness momentary 
should have reigned supreme, alas ! gloom, grief and 
woe usurp their place ; tears flow instead of smiles, and 
the mansion is draped in mourning. But hark ! From 
the neglected piano, on which the lost intended had so 
often performed, in the deserted parlor, suddenly come 
ravishing strains of gushing music and melody. The 
startled family rush into the parlor and find the instru- 
ment pouring forth his favorite piece, which it had so 
often discoursed under his magic touch, and not a per- 
son in contact or present. 

And again : Rev. T. L. Harris, author of " Lyric 
of the Golden Age," a poem about the size of Milton's 
Paradise Lost, and which, if not equal to the latter in 
fertility of invention, as it is not an epic, has more 
than Miltonic grandeur and sublimity, and which was 
composed and dictated in ninety-four hours, under an 
inspirational influence transcending in correctness and 
stateliness of style, and beauty and sublimity of senti- 
ment, everything uttered by Yalmika, or Homer, or 
Zoroaster, or Solomon, or David, or Isaiah, or Paul, or 
John, or Mahomet, or any and all Biblical writers and 
inspired men of other days; of whom "it is alleged 
that when spirits enter his sphere they become visible 
to others ; that persons of refined habits and acute sen- 
sation both see and hear them ; that the spirits are able 
to cause atmospheric undulations, and to produce the 
most delicate chemical combinations and sensational 
impressions — all made manifest to the outer senses of 
men by distinct vibrations, concussions, vocal and in- 
strumental music, and also by the diffusion of delight- 



300 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

ful aromas, like the perfume of jessamine flowers, etc., 
through the common atmosphere, which is not intrin- 
sically improbable, since all the simple elements of 
which the aromas consist are everywhere diffused in 
the earth and atmosphere, and it needs but the subtile 
chemism of the spirit to so combine them as , to render 
their presence manifest to the senses ; was called upon 
in December, 1852, by Mrs. C, in the hope of obtain- 
ing some evidence of immortality which might afford 
her the consolation she needed in a season of deep 
affliction. Her husband had departed this life, and 
her spirit yearned for the assurance that life was re- 
newed and love immortal beyond the grave. Mr. 
Harris knew nothing of her history, and had no exter- 
nal perception of the object of her visit, but becoming 
entranced in her presence, all was revealed to him. 
He informed the lady that her husband was an United 
States officer, described his mental and physical pecu- 
liarities, his dress, a scar on his face, and said that he 
carried a repeater watch, and was in the frequent habit 
of applying it to his ear and striking the hour. The 
father of Mrs. C, an eminent divine, was also described 
on the same occasion, and the lady declared that the 
delineations w T ere in every essential particular true to 
nature and the facts. 

During the same month another interesting illustra- 
tion of the author's (Harris) mediumship occurred. A 
professional gentleman at the South was invited to hear 
Mr. Harris lecture on Spiritualism, but declined, hav- 
ing no faith in the alleged manifestations from spirits. 
On being requested to make a personal visit to Mr. H., 
he consented, at the same time affirming that no spirit 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 301 

could reveal the facts in the life of the person that pur- 
ported to communicate, in such a manner as to insure 
identification, as all the phenomena were mere psycho- 
logical hallucinations, which he himself could produce 
at pleasure. This gentleman was accordingly intro- 
duced to Mr. Harris, and after a brief interview, the 
latter — being under the magnetic influence of some 
spirit — retired to his interior plane of observation. 
The visitor was informed that the spirit of a young 
female attended him as a guardian. Her personal ap- 
pearance, costume, and other things connected with the 
life on earth, were described; the relation which had 
previously existed between the gentleman and his 
spirit-guardian was intimated; the nature of her life, 
and the circumstances of her death, were referred to ; 
the spirit also gave him an impressive communication, 
indicating her condition in the spirit-world, the habits 
of her earthly friend, and concluded by admonishing 
him to reform. At the close of this interview the gen- 
tleman went away, but not long after called on Mr. 
Harris again, and related the story of the life and death 
of the young girl whose spirit had so unexpectedly 
addressed him, affirming, at the same time, that he was 
fully satisfied of the truth of Spiritualism, from the 
astonishing accuracy of the disclosures made through 
Mr. H. The gentleman also expressed his conviction 
that the medium could not have derived his impres- 
sions by psychological process from his own mind, and 
that this was rendered evident to him from the state- 
ment of an important fact respecting the spirit, which, 
until that hour, was neither known nor conceived of 
by himself. Since the first interview a personal inves- 



302 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

tigation had fully established, in his mind, the truth of 
the statement." 

For this I'm indebted to Brittan's superb and splen- 
did Introduction to the " Lyric of the Golden Age." 

And yet again : The most splendid and perfect oil pic- 
tures of deceased children and friends are often produced 
in less than an hour by mediums who knew nothing of 
them — entire strangers — to the unbounded delight and 
joy of living parents and friends. And sometimes the 
very air is vocal with the choral melodies of these an- 
gelic spirits who formerly wore the flesh of men. 
These facts and millions more, occurring in all ages 
and generations, and in our own age and in our own 
midst, as well avouched and authenticated as any other 
facts not within our personal cognition, and which 
urgently invite personal cognizance, certainly challenge 
and should command your most devoted investigation. 
Is it psychometry ? If so, how could the psychometer 
perceive them, unless they or their representatives were 
somewhere and accessible where in actual existence? 
Then it must be ocular demonstration of immortality. 
Is it psychologic illusion? If so, whence come the 
facts unknown to all at the time? Is it due to an ab- 
normal excitation, or mysterious mental exuberation ? 
If so, whence the cause of this condition, when in a 
state of perfect passivity ? and whence the source of the 
great truths utterei ? I call upon the learned to ex- 
plicate these occult elements, unfold the latent agencies 
of these potent phenomena, under test conditions that 
admit of no collusion or deception, if they be not, as 
invariably claimed, messages of immortality from our 
friends who have passed the mystic portal. Hear the 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 3C3 

burning words through the mouth of a medium, 
from the great Greek whose fame like him of Latium two 
centuries later, fills the spheres of our world 5 a fame 
that has no ensanguined track of victims to deplore, no 
writhing desolation to bewail like Titus and Vespasian 
over Jerusalem in ruins, with its bleeding sons, and 
famishing mother devouring her child ; no weltering 
Waterloo to weep over, like Wellington when his melt- 
ing eyes surveyed the bloody carnage he had wrought ; 
whose escutcheon is untarnished with a tear and un- 
stained with a drop of human blood ; whose melody is 
unmarred with the widow's moan or an orphan's sigh, 
pure and spotless as the cerulean ether that poured its 
inspirations into his great soul : " Had you asked me 
concerning God a thousand years ago, I could have told 
you all about him — but now, after I have walked the 
highway of celestial worlds for more than two thousand 
years, I am so far lost and overpowered amid the splend- 
ors of infinitude I can s^y nothing. Height on height 
beyond the penetration of finite vision, I see the dim 
outlines of a deitific universe ; I feel the flood-tides of 
Divinity flowing clown through all the avenues of my 
immortal being ; I hear peal after peal of archangel 
eloquence ringing through the endless archways of the 
empyrean, evermore sounding into my ears the name 
of God, God, God ! I'm silent, dumb." Isn't this 
Demosthenaic, and is it his inspiration, or is it due to 
the genius of the medium ? Suppose the medium 
youthful, artless and without genius, and pouring forth 
such eloquent thoughts as is frequently, or at least some- 
times, the case, then whence the source and what the 
philosophy, if it be not as invariably avowed from 
14 



304 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

present immortals of the spirit world ? The theory 
of a diseased or morbid or abnormal condition of the 
brain, will not, can not, explain the unknown intelli- 
gence. This new science of Psychometry deserves 
more than a passing notice. As recorded in the " Eclec- 
tic Magazine of Foreign Literature," taken from " Wel- 
don's Register " — Prof. Hitchcock in his well known 
book, " The Religion of Geology," speaking of the in- 
fluence of light upon bodies, and of the formation of 
pictures upon them by means of it, says : " It seems, 
then, that this photographic influence pervades all 
nature, nor can we say where it stops. We do not know 
but it may imprint upon the world around us our fea- 
tures as they are modified by various passions, and thus 
fill nature with daguerreotype impressions of all our 
actions that are performed in daylight. It may be, 
too, that there are tests by which nature, more skillful 
than any human photographer, can bring out and fix 
these portraits, so that acuter senses than ours shall see 
them as on a great canvass spread over the material 
universe. Perhaps, too, they may never fade from that 
canvass, but become specimens in the great picture gal- 
lery of eternity." One Dr. Denton and his wife Eliza- 
beth — that they are Americans need scarcely be said — 
have just published a book, called " The Soul of 
Things; or, Psychometric Researches and Discoveries," 
in which they assert that what Prof. Hitchcock thus 
says " perhaps may be," really is. They say that radiant 
faces are passing from all objects to all objects, every mo- 
ment of time, and photographing the appearances of each 
upon the other, every action, every movement being thus 
infalibly registered for coming ages. " The pane of 



PHILOSOPHY OF LTFE. 305 

glass in the window, the brick in the wall, and the 
paving-stone in the streets catch the pictures of all 
passers-by and carefully preserve them. Not a leaf 
waves, not an insect crawls, but each motion is recorded 
by a thousand faithful scribes, in infalible and indelible 
scriptures." This having always been so, there is thus 
stored up in nature the most faithful memorials of 
the entire past — of the early world and its tides of 
liquid fire, its rushing floods and steaming vapors ; of 
every plant, from the club-moss to the tree-fern ; of 
every animal, from the polyp to the pachyderm ; and 
of every tribe and nation and race of man. All have 
set for their portraits, and " there the portraits all are 
faithfully daguerreotyped in this divine picture-gallery 
for all time." And it is not sights alone that are regis- 
tered, but sounds as well. Nature is not only a picture- 
gallery, but a whispering-gallery, too. As no scene is 
ever effaced, so no sound ever dies out. " The lullaby 
sung by our cradle, the patter of the rain upon the 
roof, the sighing of the winds, the roll of the thunder, 
the dash of falling waters, the murmur of affection, 
the oath of the inebriate, the hymn at the church, the 
song at the concert, the words of wisdom and folly, the 
whisper of love — all are faithfully registered." " All 
sounds record themselves on all objects within their in- 
fluence, and these phonotypes, as they may be termed, 
are almost, if not entirely, as enduring as the objects 
themselves." Neither the "phonotypes" nor the 
" portraits " may be brought out, or " developed," by 
any known chemical application, but in some individu- 
als the brain is sufficiently sensative to perceive them 
when it is brought into proximity with the objects on 



306 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

which they are impressed." Persons thus sensative 
are called " Psych ometers," and of the sights which 
such persons have seen, and of the sounds which they 
have heard, when exercising their peculiar faculty, this 
book sets forth one hundred and fourteen instances, all 
of which are indeed " wonderful, if true." A piece of 
brick or stone from an ancient city has enabled them to 
see and hear all that was ever done or uttered in its 
vicinity ; a piece of fossil animal has taken them back 
to the world in which that animal lived and moved and 
had its being, and enabled them to observe minutely its 
physical condition, and all characteristics alike of its 
vegetable productions and of its brute inhabitants ; a 
bit of granite has made them spectators of the primeval 
chaos, amid whose throes the mountain whence it was 
taken had its birth, and a fragment of an aerolite has 
given them wings on which to travel through the limit- 
less fields of space. It is obvious that, if "■ Psychome- 
try " be true, nature will no longer have " mysteries," 
nor history " secrets ;" we shall no longer be puzzled 
by theories as to the origin of the antiquity of man, 
or as to the methods by which the infinite variety of 
complicated results which we see in the three kingdoms 
of nature have been produced. All the processes 
which are going on, or ever have gone on, in nature, 
will be unveiled to the gaze of the " Psychometer," 
and all that man, in any age or country, have said or 
done, will be similarly present to his eye and ear. 
So far the latest development of American psychology. 
Well may we ask Mr. Cobden's question, " What next — 
and next?" Now that the phenomena of spiritualism 
are true, you will not, can not deny ; but the question to 






PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 307 

investigate is, are they the result of supernal spiritual 
agency, or of some other occult philosopy ? I have 
said psychology furnishes a rational though not satis- 
factory explanation — indeed spiritualism is psychology 
extended to the spirit world ; and I now assert psychome- 
try to be a rational theory of explanation for the 
spiritual phenomena ; but this, like the other, fails in 
practice under strict test conditions and trials. Can 
psychometry or psychology as confined to flesh, or can 
any degree of mental excitation, independent of super- 
nal spiritual inspiration, account for and explain how 
Apollonius, when discoursing at Ephesus, suddenly ex- 
claimed, " Strike, strike the tyrant ! courage, my friends, 
for at this very moment the tyrant is slain," — and 
subsequent intelligence proved that the reigning tyrant 
Domitian was assinated at that very hour; and how 
the preacher, among the grampian hills of Scotland, 
when in the midst of his prayer, he suddenly stopped, 
and trembling with peculiar nervous emotion, ex- 
claimed : " rejoice my people, we are free ; Charles 
Stuart speaks no more, his tongue hangs out and th2y 
can never get it back again " — became impressed with 
this idea, and was so suddenly and unexpectedly in- 
formed of this fact, which was totally unknown, and 
indeed only transpired at that very moment, hundreds 
of miles distant, and precisely as he was impressed and 
expressed it — his tongue protruding immediately after 
death,and his attendants unsuccessfully striving to replace 
it ? Can any conceived or conceivable philosophy ex- 
plicate these cases, other than that of spiritual influence, as 
avowed by the authors themselves in spirit life ? In 
this case just refered to, there can be no psychometric 



308 nilLOSOPHY OF LIFE. 

picture of the sensitive brain of the preacher, for the 
subject of the picture had not existed until now ; nor 
could human psychology have operated, for the fact 
was unknown at the time outside of the i mmedi ate cir cite 
who witnessed it. And if mind itself is capable of this 
mighty expansion, why does it not perceive human 
mortality or death, if such be faot, or why, if this last 
be the philosophy, does it always perceive human im- 
mortality, if such be not the fact ? And I ask this 
question of all these and all other philosophies and 
theories that have been> or may be put forth, to explain 
these spiritual phenomena, why is it that they all, in- 
variably, point to spiritual philosophy or reveal spirit 
life and spirit form — human immortality or superior, 
if not ubiquitous; intelligence ? This is very signifi- 
cant. And yet again : Ignatius Loyola, the founder of 
the Jesuits, whom I've been religiously reared to hate, 
who was sincere and devout in his religious lustrations 
notwithstanding the atrocities of his later sectators, was 
frequently, as it is related, taken up bodily during his 
religious exercise* Prior to the modern philosophy of 
spirit, I wou!d- have rejected this and all kindred 
stories, as fabulous ; but now I am prepared to believe 
it and receive as true, these marvelous histories of the 
past, because we have them enacted now, at the present 
day, and have found a philosophy for them. Mr. 
Home is frequently taken up, without visable agency, 
and carried around in a room near the ceiling. Now 
what operation of physical science or principle of 
physical philosophy, does all this? We know not, and 
no body knows a physical element or combination of 
such elements, adequate to this phenomenon, beyond our 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 309 

detection. The only solution is mental or spiritual, 
and whence, and who, and where the mind or spirit, if 
it be not our excarnated friends, now immortal angels, 
in contiguous spheres near to and communicating with 
us? Then ye men of science fully unfold this mighty 
philosophy of a new element in human nature, a potent 
principle for no good, no purpose, to the creator or the 
creature, unless it reaches to a kindred spirit land 
whose love attractions draw us to those sweet shores of 
spirit empire, where we shall drink from near the foun- 
tain and imbibe the vitalizing azure air that develop 
angelic intelligences — the mighty multitude of happy 
life that God is gathering around him, as a father 
gathers his children and binds their brows with gar- 
lands of beauty and love. 

Let not the follies, falsities and fatuities of charla- 
tans, for they swarm everywhere, so disgust you as to 
turn you from the transcendent splendor of the phi- 
losophy. 

Trace those (i strings, or threads of distant contact" 
by which the blind man perceived and recognised 
others, of which Abercrombie speaks, before the spiri- 
tual philosophy was known; or "the fine thread of 
light which moves the medium," as a spirit lately 
spoke ; and see if they don't draw you to those spheres 
where flows the ambrosial nectar of the gods. O my 
coevals and co-equals in philanthropy, philosophy and 
science ! You whose aspirations thrill responsive to my 
own ! I ask you, I urge you, to come up closer to this 
warm sun of the soul and receive new life, and relume 
your love where ruin is unknown, and warm your 
hearts so chilled by the cold creeds of old theology. 
Come, let us worship at the shrine of philosophy, for 



310 riTL^OSOPHY OF LIFE. 

this is the true worship of the true God. Listen, listen 
to this new, near music of the circumambient spheres. 

Hear the harmonies that thrill these near concentric 
realms of pure and spotless spirituality. March to the 
music of those melodies that roll and reverberate an- 
themic raptures along the grand corridors of all eternity. 
Awake, ye who shall awake while the centuries sleep ! 
You shall be my kindred and my colleagues and co- 
laborators in this glorious path of progress that leads 
os to higher life, and points to the portals of immortal 
love, where ambrosial dews and theobromal streams per- 
meate the azure ether and fertilize immortal mind. 

Arouse the dormant energies of your universal love r 
and shake off the apathy of ignorance and the bigotry 
of blind education that invest our fellow men as ves- 
tures of triple steel. 

If our determined will has the power to control 
nature, why not control human destiny, for what is 
destiny but nature? What is any thing, or every 
thing, known and unknown, but nature? Then let us 
determine by a pure, resolute and honest will, to live 
like philosophers and die like gods, or the sons of God — . 
die but to put on immortal mantles and claim the legiti- 
mate legacy of our Father. 

Let us spurn the sneers of the ignorant but self-wise 
scoffer, pity the poor pulings of the soulless slave to 
gross matter; rise in the true majesty of developed 
man ; vindicate the true magnificence of our destiny ; 
assert the divinity within us ; exalt our love ; expand 
our thoughts; unfurl the latent piaions of our immor- 
tal being and soar amid the radiant realms of a spiritual 
universe for those splendid pavilions encircling the 
sky of science and the shrine of philosophy ! 



THE ETERNITY OF TRUTH. 



DEDICATED TO THE TRUE. 



The God is Truth : and long ere earth sprung forth, 

Or sun streamed light 'pon orbs just emerging 

Into life, Truth was. Away back upon 

The distant pathway of the past, before 

The first anthem startled sleeping spirits 

Of immortality — before the first 

Music of a sphere thrilled melody on 

The infant ears of a new creation — 

Truth sat enthroned in the heaven of its 

Own eternity. Pavilioned in light, 

Enrobed in radiance of glory there, 

It burned and beamed upon an universe 

Slumb'ring in the dark midnight of chaos, 

Without a pulse to strike the lyre of life, 

Or ear to catch echo of existence ; 

Until the co-eternal Father, big 

With love, upon the vast void around Him 

Poured forth His all-prolific beam, and breathed 

Vital energy into creation. 

In all the bright effulgent realms of light 

Truth rules and gilds the glory of its God ; 

And he who worships Truth becomes its child, 

Invested with its own eternity, 

And clothes himself in immortality. 

As floating clouds obscure the light of day, 

Or intervening orbs eclipse the sun, 

Or thunders break the silence of the earth, 

Or mars the harmonies of the heaven, 

The veil of sin may dim a transient hour, 

14* 



312 IJUGISAL I Ob MS. 

And hand in hand with hate, may weave a woe ; 

Falsehood's forked tongue may pierce night's dull ear r 

And make music to its mongrel minions ; 

Slander's seared soul may slime the tracks of Truth, 

And strew her peaceful paths with thorny shafts ; 

Envy's ever-eating, insatiate maw 

May strike its tooth in to the- tender heart 

Of injured innocence and purity ; 

Diabolic hatred's hell-heated heart. 

Whose best and warmest bosom 's in the church,. 

May throb and thrill its bitter poison 

Into the veins of virtuous innocence, 

And true high-hearted, manly misfortune ; 

Parasitic knavery may bega smile, 

And venal voracity bark for more •; 

Sacerdotal sanctity may hurl its hell 

'Gainst aberrations of erratic love ;.; 

And clerical hypocrisy may scowl" 

A lurid g'are in truth's transient eclipse, 

And hold high carnival of crime in night 

Hid'ous with satanic saturnalia ; 

And all the canine kindred of mankind 

And moral vipers of the human race 

That glory in the midnight of character, 

That ever in their own pollutions prowl, 

May fasten thiir fan^5 imthe victim of chance, 

Anl weave a web of woe to fringe a face, 

And fain to cast a shadow o'er its shining — 

Yet ever and anon Truth shall triumph 

In its own illustrious eternity,. 

And with a radiance of celestial hue, 

Shall bend the brow of all her votaries. 

There is an immaculate chancery 

In thn jurisprudence of the Heavens, 

And on its ermine Truth sits chancellor, 

Whose decrees, pure and unappellatory, 

Vindicate the true slander-stricken soul, 

And eternise beautitude of right. 

Anl all who Truth truly embrace and wed 

Become invested in eternity, 



ORIGINAL POEMS. 313 

Splendid denizens of infinitude, 

Robed in mantles of immortality ! 

The murky nisrlit shall melt to dewy morn, 

And transient twilight twinkle into day, 

With time the serfs of sin shall pass away : 

Falsehood's fumes, rumor's tongues and slander's spleen, 

And envy's hate, deceit and ignorance, 

And all the dire satanic train of time 

Shall die, and, confined in oblivion, 

Cease to shadow life's cerulean sun. 

Old earth itself, sin-scarred and seared with crime, 

May lapse again to second night chaotic, 

Nor longer murmur her children's miseries : 

Aye, nature's grand gigantic frame may fail, 

Its deep foundations shake, its columns crack, 

The stary arches crumble into ruin, 

The pillared universe dissolve in flame 

Anu creation uncreated nothing ; 

Yet truth shall rise and rule triumphant o'er 

All its wrecks, its riots and its ruins, 

A principle immutable, divine, 

And robed in light, wing'd with immortality 

And gilded in its chariot of glory, 

'Mid the whirlwind ashes of second chaos 

Chant the dirge o'er nature's vast mausoleum. 

Yes, shall live on when nature sinks in years, 

The honor of man, the glory of God, 

Pierian fount of seraph minstrelsy, 

Supernal nectar of immortal gods ; 

And wide athwart the circumambient air, 

And over all the blest abodes of bliss, 

Shall beam around the brow of Deity, 

Undimed, imperishable, eternal. 



314 ORIGINAL POEMS. 

THE HIGH RESOLVE. 



FOR THE RESOLUTE. 



Ill plume again my eagle heart on high, 
To claim the kindred lightnings as they fly, 
And every thunder roll that rends the sky 
Shall echo immortality to die. 

Ill wing me through creation like a bee, 
And sip the flowers of life's immortal tree ; 
I'll taste the spheres and join the jubilee 
Of all the angels grand eternity. 

In this luxurious faith I'll wrap my soul 

As in a robe, nor heed earth's idle roll ; 

I'll bask in bliss and range from pole to pole; 

And drink, truth's stream, the nectar of the soul. 

With eagle eye and nature of the dove, 
I'll soar amid the sunlit realms above, 
Beyond the bounds where sin and sorrow rove,, 
And live and lave in everlasting love. 



"OTHERS AKD I"-- ORIGINAL, ENERGY. 



FOR THE INDEPENDENT. 



As the spheres their regular circuits run, 
And rise and roll around their central sun, 
Nor stops, nor start, nor fly to wander far 
From orbits old of ev'ry central star ; 
So other men their settled circles keep, 
Nor turn to penetrate the outer deep 
Of nature's dark and deep unseen domain, 
But, content, live o'er other's lives again. 



ORIGINAL POEMS. 315 

As the comet cleaves nature's unknown night, 
For future v oriels, the pioneer, and light — 
Now bathed in heat intense of solar ray ; 
Then shooting out beyond the skirts of day : 
So I, no well-worn pathway to pursue, 
But launching through the deep ether'eal blue, 
Now soar 'mong suns and then anon away, 
Where morning never blushed into the day. 

Independent Energy is the fire 

That survives human nature's funeral pyre, 

Where virtue, truth and love immortal gleam 

Around enraptured life's eternal stream. 

The deep impulsions of the ardent soul, 

The fiery flashings that intensely roll 

In beams that burn, seraphic and sublime, 

But symbolize the high impyreal clime, 

Where mind, upon its altar and its shrine 

Shall glow undimmed, immortal and divine. 



OUR CHILDREN GONE BEFORE. 



DEDICATED TO THEIR MOTHER, MRS. ANN REMBERT. 



Our children gone before 

To that celestial shore 
Where life is all immortal and divine, 

Will meet us at the door 

With fountains running o'er 
Of loves that flow forever round their shrine. 

Our little Andrew first 

Who never felt the thirst 
That burns our brains and heaves the bitter sigh 

Next Lizzie, cherub child ; 

Then gentle Mary mild ; 
And sprightly Nannie, of the bright blue eye ; 



316 OEIGINAL POEMS. 

Then George, the manly boy, 

His mother's brightest joy ; 
Next Andrew, the noble man of noble fame. 

His father's hope and pride, 

His pillar and his gnide, 
Image of my noble sire with his name ; 

And Andrew, third and last, 

Whose infant life but passed 
Into the pearly portals of the sky ; — 

Mother, they've gone ahead, 

Not lying with the dead, 
Bat living the elysian life on high. 

Or else they sweetly sleep, 

While we their vigils keep, 
Nor ought allow their slumbers to disturb ; 

And we shall join their rest 

With nothing to molest 
And nothing e'er oar spirits to perturb. 

In that sweet summer land, 
On that bright starry strand, 

Where winteis never chill the azure air ; 
And on that shining shore 
With all our children o'er, 

mother! when shall we be gathered there? 

Before us they are born, 

And we are left forlorn — 
mother, when shall we be born again ? 

Our angels at their home, 

May greet us when we come 
To join their happy life and sweet refrain. 

Let us banish sadness, 

Sing for very gladness, 
Our loved ones gone before are angels grown ; 

Come, wipe away your tears, 

And vanish all our fears, 
For we saaLl know them all a3 we are known. 



ORIGINAL POEMS. 317 

MY BROTHER. 



Improvised on heirin^ ray youthful and dovoted daughter, Margaret Rein- 
bert— so like her brother, the noblest R)tnvi of us all— play on the piano 
and sing, " Bring my Brother Back to mi," and dedicated to her by her father. 



Don't bring ray brother back again,. 

O don't disturb bis sweet repose ,' 
Don't bring him to this world of pain, 

Of sighs, of sorrows and of woes. 
From bloody battle fields afar. 

From death, from carnage an:l from crime, 
Beyond the glare an 1 gloom of war, 

Beyond the toil and strife of time ; 
In the bright ethereal blue, 

The air of the angels above, 
The home of the good and the true, 

The cerulean realms of love. 
My noble brother's now at home, 

The angels' home of peace and love, 
God's bright benignant spheral dome. 

Prepared for all the pure above ; 
Where seraphs sing and angels hymn 

Harmonious in the azure air ; 
Up there in perenial spring-. 

My happy brother lives up there. 
Some loved ones too, who've gone before. 

Are with him on that other shore 
Where life's full springs are running o'er, 

Flowing with joys for ver more. 
Then bring not back my brother here, 

Return him not to earth again ; 
I'll go to him and meet him there, 

Where love and life immortal reign. 
'Tis well, the time an 1 way he died, 

His fame so full, his death so bright ; 
For future strife might turn aside 

And cloud his fame anl dim his light. 
His memory is now our shrine ; 



318 OEIGINAL POEMS. 

His spirit presence fills our fane ; 
His youthful life has grown divine— 

O incarnate him not again. 
Maternal is his mother's love, 

Paternal is his father's heart, 
Fraternal thoughts his brothers move, 

Eternal love his sister's part. 
Soon all these loves again will meet, 

And foremost in the happy throng, 
My angel brother blest I'll greet 

With my true and triumphant song ! 



INVOCATION. 



[in acatalectic line— for the philosophic] 



Thou great Creator of the elements, 
Sire of nature and God of creation ! 
Mighty Majesty of the Universe, 
And Father of all the heavens and earths ! 
Seated in centre of the central sun, 
Around which revolve the myriad suns 
With their circling systems of peopled worlds ! 
To whom the suns with their circlets of light 
Beside Thy spiritual effulgence, 
Are but the dark draperies of thy robes. 
Thou whose presence permeates the planets 
And the distant planetary spaces ! 
Whose omniscient vision views infinitude 
Of limitless domain, the happy home 
Of all Thy limitless developments 
Of endlessly recurring processes, 
Of interminable immortalities 
Throughout interminable duration : 



ORIGINAL POEM3. 319 

Tliy profound infinity of domain 

And vast eternity" of duration 

Are co-equal and illimitable ! 

O, Thou, Father ! canst Thou see, wilt Thou hear, 

Thy child of sorrow in this distant earth, 

Born in ign'rance and panting for knowledge ; 

Abounding in kindness and affection, 

And surrounded in selfishness and hate ; 

Rapt in hope and warm with heavenly love 

Amid human icebergs of frozen hearts ; 

Feeding on the memories of the dead, 

And on the hopes of the unknown future ; 

On the urns m of other generations 

Walking and weeping in a world of graves ; 

Like him on the eve of death-dealing battle, 

Should I pray " O God, if there be a God, 

Save my soul, if I have a "soul ?" What more ? 

O Creator, what more can Thy creature ? 

Or another Gallic soldier, full of faith : 

" God, if in battle I forget Thee, 

Do not Thou forget me !" Dost Thou thus mind? 

Dost heed the futile faith of feeble man ? 

Or, as Trismegistus expressed of Thee 

On Egyptian temples, ere Plato spoke l 

" I am all that was, or is, or shall be ;" 

Or, the Russian in Miltonic measure : 

" I am, O God, and surely Thou must be." 

And shall this " I am " ever cease to be ? 

Or should I pray like Socrates of old, 

Not presuming to the gods to dictate,. 

Nor knowing what to ask, but only good. 

Thee we pray, Eternal God, our Father, 

And all Thy agents and Thy elements. 

Like the ancient Hindoo philosopher, 

Weeping, I entered life while others smiled ; 

Direct me so to live that when I die, 

Smiling I'll leave the world while others weep. 



320 ORIGINAL POEMS. 

Let no vengeful Nemesis arraign me 
With unrelenting, ruthless retribution, 
Or I sink like Caesar, and forever. 
O help, Thy child of sorrow help, Father ! 

Illustrious Christ and gentle Jesus ! 
The Christian's hope, Redeemer, God ; 
And one of the regal Tiberian gods ; 
Contemned by men and honored by angels ; 
Who marked, and led, and died the way to life, 
And from highest heav'n looks with love on man : 
0, to my troubled elements of life, 
And to my fiery nature, speak peace, 
And inspire me with thy philosophy. 
Endue me with thy love and charity, 
Thy long-suffering and philanthropy, 
That illustrated sociology, . 
During thy incarnated life 'mong men. 

Ye swift- winged winds that round me roar and sweep 
This little earth, or in gentle zephyrs, 
Like an infant's kiss, cool my fevered brow ; 
Come waft away my sorrows and my sighs, 
And wing my spirit to a port of peace. 

Ye wild waters, that roll from pole to pole, 
Largest part of my body and the globe, 
Nature's solvent ; wash all my sins away, 
And on your bosom bear me to a shore 
Where curse of crime and dirge of death are not. 

Ye elements of nature and of life, 
That elaborate my haecceity ; 
O, fulfill your mission, complete your task, 
And in your current drift me home to truth. 

And thou, consuming fire, invisible, 
That segregates again the elements 
Of corpore'ty to cineration ; 



ORIGINAL TOEMS. 321 

O, purify and prepare my spirit 
For the high and pure electric ether: 

Supernal ether of the angel realms,. 
Celestial sunshine of immortal gods, 
That develops all immortalities ; 
Pour thy fountains in my thirsty spirit, 
And ripen me for thy radiant realms. 

And music, music of the spheres sublime, 
That hailed an infant universe at birth, 
And hymns forever its- immortal march ; 
Reverberating now from world to world 
Anthemic raptures through the vocal voids. 
And angel anthems of eternal love ; 
Sweet minstrelsy and melody of heav'n, 
Flowing fore'er unheard by carnal man ; 
Grand oratorio of creation : 
Roll your harmonies, sound yonr symphonies. 
On the dull t} mpanum of my spirit, 
That I may thrill responsive to the spheres.. 
Me from discord and dissonance relieve, 
Or from dismal death's sepulchral silence ;: 
Give me concord and consonance instead, 
With cheerful life's angelic melodies. 
Let soothing sounds and ravishing refrains 
In rapturous floods wake my solitude. 
O, that I may hear the hymns of heaven, 
And catch an echo of that angel band 
That serenade the suns and fill the spheres I 

And thou, too, O Time, infinite presence, 
Embryo of eternity begun ! 
That covers all worlds and between pervades* 
That silent sits and broods from nature's birth„ 
From nature's earliest morn of life to noon, 
Eternal noon, without an eve or night, 
Reaching back from first forever forward,. 



322 ORIGINAL POEMS. 

From everlasting to everlasting ; 

That bears us on buoyant, boundless bosom 

Along thy ceaseless, overflowing stream, 

From life's bright morning to death's dismal chasm- 

On this side to view so dark and dismal, 

On the other, bright and pearly portal'; 

Great cyclic chronicler of creation : 

Remember me ! and in thy ceaseless flow, 

Forever flowing and without a shore, 

Buoy me from the mud and mire of nature 

Into her clear air of angelic life. 

Ye loved ones gone before me — angels now— 
Who linger round my silent couch at night, 
Minist'ring spirits of my daily walks, 
Breathing the ether of the spirit spheres 
And imbibing from deific fountains 
That fertilize the realms of life and love ! 
O, who'll first hail me at your happy home ? 
What shall I do, what can I do but wait, 
To inherit your legacy of life, 
To realize my heritage of hope ? 
Then patience teach and twine around my heart. 
Stimulate all indolent apathy, 
Regulate my redundant energy ; 
Surround me with all those influences, 
Whether of penal fear or grateful love, 
That will restrain the evil of my flesh, 
And help my feeble, fluttering spirit, 
Struggling ever for the good and the true. 
Still my tongue ere it shall utter error, 
Hold my hand ere it indite delusion ; 
But endue them with Promethean fire 
To proclaim the truth of life, and if true, 
To herald the soul's immortal heaven. 
O, give to me an evidential view 
To know you live, and love and linger lound mel 
Reach forth your hands and hold my aching head, 
And bear me to your bright and blest abodes 
Where life and truth and love immortal blooms. 

Ye spirits pure, who ride on rays of light, 



ORIGINAL POEMS. 323 

Intermediaries of God and men, 

Coparcenaries of enlightened minds 

In estates eternal and elysian ! 

Relume my love, rekindle all anew 

On your own bright shores of seraphic life, 

The flame that erstwhile burned so brightly here. 

To burn forever in your vestal fanes ! 

Give me to drink of your ambrosial draughts, 

Nectar'ous streams and theobromal dews 

Thai, breed your divinity and your gods, 

And fructify your apotheosis. 

And all ye winds, and waves, and starry spheres ; 
And ye elements of immortal life ; 
And choral anthems of angel orchestras ; 
And Time's ubiquitous infinitude ; 
And Christ- anointed truth and charity ; 
And winged spirits of celestial air; 
Dear friends of former days, all angels now, 
Developed denizens of Paradise ; 
And Thou, loved God, and Father of us all- 
Fan this feeble, nickering flame into 
A meteor of immortality ! 
Fit me for the spheres, ripen and pluck me 1 
And all earth's pitied children gather up, 
For happy homes of purity fit them ; 
And bind us all in bands of love and truth 
That shall break never, and live forever ! 

0, all ye agencies and elements 
That evoke, evolve and evolute us 
To unfold forever into higher, 
Higher harmonies and greater glories, 
For ye all perform your parts appointed ; 
And Thou, Jehovah, universal god ! 
Prepare, fit us, poor children of the earth, 
So strangely mixed of angel and deviJ, 
Enlightened love and dark diabolism, 
Peaceful Ariels and bloody Molochs, 
To become members of that vast family 
From our neighbors Mercury to Neptune, 



324 ORIGINAL POEMS, 

And distant Arcturus and Orion, 

Still more remote where telescopic ken 

Ne'er penetrated their deep arcana, 

To be fit members of that countless host ; 

That mighty multitude of angel life 

That throng round ev'ry sky of ev'ry world, 

And read the letters of the distant spheres. 

Their ev'ry leaf of sky and starry type, 

Bright and beaming, sheets lettered with the stars, 

The stellar page and lightning — lettered scroll ; 

That vocalize with love immortal and divine 

The corridors of all eternity, 

And ring round the pillars of all the worlds., 

Or echo 'long the aisles of all the orbs, 

Or so nd among the arches of the suns, 

And fill with universal melody 

The dome of the universal heaven ! 



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Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 

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